Servers

The Main channel was restarted with version #17.11.11.510664. This update includes Internal Fixes and a fix for BUG-139176 Issue with OBJECT_REZZER_KEY reporting incorrectly after linking and delinking prims. This version has run on the RC channels for a couple of weeks.

The Fire Within

There will be no updates to the RC channel this Wednesday. The next day is a holiday in the USA. So, the RC channels will continue to run the packed just promoted to the main channel.

The internal fixes are typically security fixes and data collection changes. Recent some of those changes had to do with various copy exploits. Simon Linden says they have caught a bunch of people trying to use those exploits.

However, there are still exploits allowing copying without the Lab being able to detect it. So, Simon asks that people keep filing JIRA and Abuse Reports. Lindens are still working on closing the exploits. So, the reports guide their work. Help by filing a report, if you have actionable information.

Allagash (resident) is talking with PC Gamer and HyperBusiness about copy problems in SL. We may hear something from them, but I have my doubts. All digital worlds have theft problems. It isn’t news.

Quoting Oz Linden, “Other considerations aside, it would be difficult to talk about details without giving hints about what we do and don’t know about what bad guys are up to. We know quite a lot, and are working hard on it, but there’s no reason to leak information we don’t need to.”

Viewers

The main Second Life™ Viewer is version 5.0.8.329115 released week #42.

Second Life Alex Ivy Viewer version 5.1.0.510354 – No update, released week #44.

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 5.0.9.329906 – This is a new version. The previous version 5.0.9.329795 was released in week #46.

Second Life Voice Viewer version 5.0.8.328552 – released in week #42. No update.

Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 5.1.0.506743 – no update since week #27. We have been told, in the third-party Dev UG, to expect one soon.

Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.0.9.329815 – Released in week #46.

Second Life Project Render Viewer version 5.1.0.510604 – This viewer released after my update of last week, #46. The release notes say:

This viewer release includes several fixes to the Rendering pipeline (always a little scary). Please report all issues to us in Jira, we’ll be watching for them.

• This viewer is now built from the Alex Ivy (64bit) branch
• There is no Linux viewer available for this build
• All known issues for the Alex Ivy Viewer apply to this build
• Improvement to mesh LOD calculation (account for CTRL+0)
• Improvement: Agents that render as jelly dolls should have their attachments render at 0 LoD to prevent loading higher LoD complexity in memory thus deterring crashes -> debug setting RenderAutoMuteByteLimit has to be > default of 0 for this feature.
• Bug: Mesh avatar deforms constantly – was due to bounding box / LOD swaps
• Bug: Some mesh turned invisible when camera  is moved – was caused by fix  for MAINT-6125. 
• Bug: Setting one avatar to “Do not render” causes all avatars to become impostors

Please notice the change to a Debug Setting if you plan to use this viewer.

Third-Party Viewers

Alchemy Viewer 5.0.7.41341 Released in week #46 after last week’s update. This is mostly a bug fix release with a bit more than a dozen fixes. Some Japanese language stuff was improved. The release notes are here. No mention of animesh, which I would find a surprise. It is too soon for the adoption of animesh, which is still changing.

Black Dragon Viewer has updated to version 2.9.3.

Firestorm Viewer won’t release until after Thanksgiving (11/24). The earliest we might see a release is 11/27, week 48. If we do not see a release between 11/27 and 12/18± then it will be early January 2018.