Another month… You likely noticed I’ve been writing more, more blog posts. And I have some Second Life projects under way. All of them involve using AI to create or explore how to do things I haven’t done before.
The majority of this report is an AI collection of what has been reported in various places this month.
Official SL Platform Updates
- July 10: Simulator release 2026-07-10.29110850825 deployed. Key fixes included ad-hoc chat session failures, P2P chat initialization timeouts, mesh upload charging issues for Premium Plus residents after region crossings, perpetually cloudy avatars after region crossings, incorrect mesh/texture upload fee estimates, and llSetText() corruption with certain UTF-8 strings. Region state-saving reliability and several crash modes were also improved.
- July 13: Follow-up simulator build 2026-07-10.29122504250 rolled out with additional refinements from the same development cycle.
- Mid-July (approx. July 14–15): Hotfix deployed across simhost channels addressing a capabilities-granting bug that could take out entire simhosts. Described as a partial but important mitigation while a fuller fix was prepared.
- Late July: Simulator channel work continued toward the “Mango” update (RC channels) and the subsequent “Nectarine” release (targeted late July/August). Lua scripting support remained on a tentative path for a later “O” simulator update (possible late August/September).
Viewer Releases
- Default Official Viewer: Remained 26.2.0.25386466510 (“Flat UI” + font updates, originally released mid-May). No new default promotion in July.
- July 27: Official Release Candidate 26.3.0.30006559438 published. Focused on quality-of-life improvements, performance gains, and bug fixes. Texture streaming work that had been under consideration was deferred to a separate Graphics Care Package effort.
- July 29: New Project Viewer released – Second Life Project Lua Editor 26.3.0.30154945611. This experimental build continues the Lua editor path (with Linux support progressing) and is intended for early testing only.
Third-Party Viewer Enhancements
- Cool VL Viewer: Multiple incremental releases throughout the month. Notable stable/experimental pairs included 1.32.4.35 / 1.32.5.5 (July 4), 1.32.4.36 / 1.32.5.6 (July 1–early July window), and 1.32.4.39 / 1.32.5.9 (July 19). Continued maintenance of the V1-style codebase with ongoing performance and compatibility work.
- Kirsten’s Viewer (S24 series): Build 3500 “Hradr” released July 11. A further DirectX-focused update appeared at the very end of the month / early August boundary.
- Second Life Mobile: Version 259026 released July 11 for both iOS and Android – bug fixes, improved camera positioning, and updates to notifications and Bubble Chat.
- Radegast: Version 2.54 released July 10.
- Game Control Project (Leviathan): New pre-release viewer (v0.7.8) cut in late July. Added per-axis/per-mode invert options, keyboard support for flycamming, variable-speed avatar rotation via stick, mouse-click actions in Mouselook, and improved raw-input diagnostics. Server-side GameControlInput message format changes were identified as a prerequisite before wider release; integration into the Lua editor path remains a goal (possible later August).
- Community: Independent developer announcement (July 12) of a new Vulkan-based viewer under development, aimed at better performance on older hardware and reduced freezes compared with traditional OpenGL viewers. Still early-stage.
- Firestorm: No new stable release in July (7.2.4 series from early June remained current). Early-access/beta monitoring continued per standard practice. The Firestorm Betax64 AVX2-7-2-5-81336 preview viewer was released about 7/16. It has some chat-text issues but is useable.
- AYAstorm: Nothing new. I am thinking it was a proof of concept release.
Grid / Performance Fixes
- Simulator deployments (July 10 & 13) delivered the bulk of the month’s stability work, particularly around chat reliability, region-crossing side-effects (cloudy avatars, mesh upload billing), map display for third-party viewers, and object/text handling edge cases.
- Capabilities-granting hot fix mid-month reduced the severity of simhost-wide failures.
- Ongoing internal work on texture streaming (moved out of the main 26.3 RC path) and game-controller server support continued to be tracked in User Group sessions.
Social or Community Changes
- July (ongoing): Regular User Group activity continued (Simulator UG / Leviathan hours, Content Creation UG, Open-Source / TPVD meetings). Topics included game-controller progress, region-crossing behavior, Lua roadmap, and viewer release cadence.
- July 11–29: Official Learning Centres for newcomers (desktop and mobile) received renewed attention and documentation updates.
- Late July: Popular region Grauland announced its closure by creator Jim Garand; community retrospectives and farewell coverage appeared at month’s end.
- Region exploration and documentation remained active (e.g., revisits and features of long-standing builds such as The Looking Glass and new or refreshed settings highlighted in community blogs).
Upcoming Events in August 2026
- August 1–31: Multiple grid-wide and themed shopping/hunt events, including Save the Sea Hunt 7, CMH’s Kawaii Summer 2, FaMESHed August edition, Sunflower Grid-Wide Hunt, and overlapping late-July/early-August events such as Kinky and Manhood.
- Standard August calendar of community meetups, User Group sessions, and seasonal shopping events expected to continue; specific large-scale official Linden-sponsored events were not prominently announced in the final days of July.
Summary note: July 2026 was a moderately active month on the technology side. The primary official advances were the two mid-month simulator deployments with meaningful chat and region-crossing fixes, the promotion of viewer 26.3 to Release Candidate status, and the fresh Lua Editor Project Viewer. Third-party activity was steady (Cool VL, Kirsten, Mobile, Radegast) while larger feature work (full Lua, game control, texture streaming) continued on longer timelines into August/September.
Sources Overview
- Official Release Notes – releasenotes.secondlife.com (simulator 2026-07-10 builds, viewer 26.3 RC & Lua Editor Alpha)
- Alternate Viewers page – releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer.html
- Inara Pey – Living in a Modemworld weekly viewer release summaries (weeks #27–#31) and Server Updates / User Group notes – modemworld.me
- Cool VL Viewer forum update logs – sldev.free.fr
- Kirsten’s Viewer blog – kirstenleecinquetti.blogspot.com
- Second Life Community forums (Vulkan viewer announcement thread)
- Grid status and event listings cross-checked via community calendars and GridAffairs-style sources for August forward-looking items