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Debugging a Second Life Region’s Lag

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I suspect many of us have visited a region and had our FPS (Frames per Second) rate drop to low single digits. Innula Zenovka is managing a region that has the problem and started looking for help figuring out what was wrong with it. I suppose managers like Innula get handed some real messes to deal with.

Innula says her viewer usually runs at about 30 FPS. But, in the problem region it drops to 2 to 3 FPS. I hate it when that happens.

See the thread: Advice, please, on reading consoles and debugging a laggy sim.

There is some good information and tips in the thread.

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T Read Out
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T Read Out

One tip is to select an item you think may be using a number of large textures. A simple right click on it will do. Then press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T. This will send a series of notifications. You will get a list of the textures used in the item as a list ordered by each object in a link set. The notifications tell you the size of the texture and which face it is applied to.

You can see the result in the image: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T Read Out. 

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Second Life News 2013-37 #3

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It seems because of the voice update, every simulator server and voice related server in the system had to be restarted. So, rather than restart RC regions twice this week, the Lindens decided to do all the rolls and restarts in one pass.

This process started about 2 AM PDT. They completed the roll about 10 AM PDT.

Blue Steel – Le Tigre: The interesting bit about this package is there is threaded region crossing code for vehicles. This information did not make it into the release notes. So, there is going to be some confusion as to whether it is there or not in some minds. But, Simon Linden is clear that the crossing code did make it to the RC.

Andrew defines it a bit better saying, “…the data streaming on the way OUT of the region is now threaded, which doesn’t make the crossing any faster, but may reduce lag spikes as witnessed by everyone else.” 

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Second Life News 2013-37 #2

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The server roll outs are breaking pattern this week. All channels are being rolled today Tuesday. There will be roll outs Wednesday.

All channels are getting a voice package update. About the only change we will see on the gird is this voice update. Otherwise the servers stay pretty much as they were.

RC Channels

As I wrote, the roll out for all RC channels happens today, Tuesday. Blue Steel and Le Tigre get a new maintenance package. This is the one that has a fix for an Auto-Return exploit used to bypass parcel auto-return. there are other bug fixes, but the auto-return one is the one most residents will see improving Second Life. These channels also get the new voice code.

Magnum channel continues to run the same package as last week (36) with the addition of the new voice code. This package is preparatory work for changes coming to the viewers. The changes have to do with texture and asset fetching. I think this has been referred to as Monty’s HTTP package.

Summary

We’ll know more after the server user group today.

Second Life News 2013-37

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I was hoping to hear some word on what new projects the Lab is working on. But, not yet. May be in a couple of weeks.

Interest List Viewer Side

For a few weeks now the server side of the Interest List changes have been done and rolled out. But, the viewer side of those changes is taking some time. The team working on the viewer side is still stomping on bugs.

TPV Dev Meetin 2013-30
TPV Dev Meetin 2013-30

When changing Interest List code there is lots of opportunity for mistakes and things not to work as expected. The team is working to avoid a bad launch of the viewer side changes.

And we are told this viewer side Interest List stuff is not one of the secret things coming…

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Second Life News 2013-36 #2

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From my perspective things are quite on the development side of Second Life™.  I suppose the Lindens could just be busy cleaning up CHUI, SSA, and working on HTTP. We also know they are working on the Advanced Experience Tools, which is probably requiring the rewriting of much of the permissions handling code for the SL system. But, every now and then we get a hint some neat new things are coming. Beyond ‘neat’ we know little if anything.

Beta Server Meeting 2013-33
Beta Server Meeting 2013-33

Andrew Linden said Tuesday that he had been fixing a griefing exploit. This is the one where large prims could knock avatars out of a region. Once upon a time that had been fixed. But, at some point the fix had been broken. That has now been fixed and the code is running in the RC channels.

While we no longer have any user group or Linden person associated with the SL Web Sites, we have heard that Monty Linden is doing some ‘web site maintenance’, which I suspect is adding some of the newer HTTP protocol code to the sites. But, we don’t really know. I guess that adding the newer HTTP communication stuff to the Direct Delivery process would be an improvement. 

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Second Life News 2013-36

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Because of the Monday holiday in the USA, server roll outs are pushed back one day. The news on the server roll outs is a bit fuzzy as Simon Linden was not available at today’s user group meeting. Not has Maestro Linden made a Deploys post. But, Andrew Linden tells us the package on the RC channels this last week is to be rolling out to the main channel on Wednesday.

Server Scripting 2013-36
Server Scripting 2013-36

Andrew added a fix that is in that package fixing a grief mode where really big objects could push avatars out of a the region. Faux rotating kfm megaprims don’t knock people out of the sim anymore. Andrew specifically targeted those prims. 

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