Second Life News Week #23

Friday was the Third-Party Developers’ UG meeting. Lots of updates on what is going on. So, check the Other News. …speaking of Other News, I am changing the order of these posts. The more interesting stuff I’ll put at the start meaning Other News. That pushes Server and Viewer reports down the page. They are still here.

The Server-Scripting UG meeting was well attended 20+. Lots of questions and answers.

Bad, Bad Panda!!

Bad, Bad Panda!!

Other News

Teleport Problems – The Lindens think they have those fixed. They have been watching the new stats they started collecting weeks ago to find the problem. It is looking good… or at least, better. If QA and RC testing had gone well, we would likely have seen the changes go grid wide this week. Maybe next week.

My experience TPing and Crossing is better. I’ve been flying and sailing with way fewer disconnects. Flying in certain RC channels I have not disconnected. From time to time in main channel regions, I do fail to connect to the destination region and get disconnected. Still, way less often.

I do still get unseated… I get left behind as my heli or boat continues on. A number of times I have recovered and caught them and continued on. Other times the controls are borked and I delete the vehicles and relog. Continue reading

Second Life News 2019 w21

I am behind this week. Too many fun things to do and work keeps interfering with my life. However, there is some interesting stuff happening.

Servers

Well… no Deploys post this week. However, the main channel and I think RC channels got updates.

Flickr Down – Sad… no pretty picture today.

Second Life Server 19.05.10.527185 – Main channel – Internal Fixes – Fixed EEP Regressions. I think the regressions are the things that broke when the other thing got fixed… Whatever, they are sorting it out.

The RC’s as of Thursday looked like this: Continue reading

Second Life News 2019 w18

Last Friday there was a Third-Party Dev UG meeting that ran 48 minutes. The video is here. I’ve included the interesting stuff mixed in.

Servers

The main channel will stay with version #19.04.22.526534. No restart. This is the version pushed to reduce disconnects. In my experience, things are much better.

Blue Steel, Le Tigre, and Magnum will update to version  #19.04.25.526669 on Wednesday. The version is listed as having Internal Fixes and Fixed EEP Regressions.

Rider Linden met with an SL group, Visionaire, to explain EEP. It is an hour plus video.

From the Server-Scripting UG: [12:34] Oz Linden: And we’ve already put in place a bunch of improvements [think detectors & stats] to our RC monitors to help prevent a similar recurrence (with more coming soon)

As of the 4/18 server change was to roll the server OS back. In doing so some are seeing less script time available. One or two have seen a drop from 100% of scripts to only 30% to 60% run.

Oz says they have lots of performance data for that metric. So, they will be checking as they move to re-upgrade the OS. The simulator OS has to update as part of the pre-move to the cloud.

There are other script performance things planned. So, the Lindens will add in a look at the script slowing issue along with those. Continue reading

Second Life News 2019 w14

There was lots of detailed information in the third-party dev UG meeting last week. We got a bunch of information on what is happening with a couple of problems. Currently, disconnects and detachments are front lines.

Servers

From ‘How Does Your Avatar Look Today?’ 4/2019 – Click

The main channel rolls to #19.03.15.525315. This is the OS upgrade. It includes the EEP support.

The RC channels Blue Steel, Le Tigre, and Magnum will be the first version with UDP asset fetching disabled or removed. See the Tools & Tech section of the SL blog Obsolete Asset Fetch Disabled for more details.

The UDP change will mean older viewers using UDP asset fetching will stop working correctly. Avatars are likely to not render or render as Ruth/Roth. Sooner or later you will have to update…

Disconnects

The RC channels will have a change that is hoped will help with the disconnect problems people are experiencing, which seems to have started in December or January. Some think EEP is causing the disconnects. EEP is coincidental with the disconnects. The current analysis of the problem suggests it is in the TCP communication between the viewers and servers.

In the March 29, Third-Party Dev UG meeting Oz talks about the problem and why it took the Lindens so long to notice. Video Basically, the problem is not showing in the performance stats the Lindens watch.

The disconnects seem to fall into groups, those occurring during a teleport and those that are periodic (disconnect every so many minutes). People trying to chase the problem down are having problems reproducing the disconnect. They have the problem rated as #1 & #2 and have lots of people on it full time plus a QA team of remote users, meaning far from the Lab distance-wise.

There are rumors about different things one can do to stop the disconnects, change the WL/EEP sky, cancel a TP mid-teleport (cancel, open World Map – find destination region – wait for it to come up and you pop in), and others. For others the key is location, Blake Sea is a problem and Heterocera is not a problem. Continue reading

Second Life News 2019 w12

Last Friday was the Third-Party Dev UG meeting. The meeting ran for 52 minutes.

RC viewers to update in week #12. As of today, not yet. Security update for Chromium revealed some problems. Google has been updating all their Chrome products with the security patch. Oz Linden is encouraging all dev’s to update. That translates to users as a reason to get the next set of viewer updates.

Grab a beer and enjoy the sunset

Grab a beer and enjoy the sunset

This set of updates takes care of a problem that is in the wild and being used. I’ve heard you have to visit a malicious website for the exploit to be used.

The EEP, BoM, and EAM versions of the viewers are waiting for server-side updates. The hope is the server updates will make it through this week (#12). Rider Linden says the plan is for the EEP simulators to roll grid wide. Currently, EPP is on Blue Steel and Le Tigre RC channels. If they advance, it will be a big step for EEP (Enhanced Environment Project).

The Lab has been doing experiments, testing, and collecting data to sort out the problem of stuff detaching when crossing regions. Continue reading

Second Life News 2019 w11

Something messed up in the blog. Seems the site got a roll back. Week 10 disappeared… not sure how long it was even up. Oh well…

So, I have reposted week 10 news in the previous article.

Comic-Style - Learning how...

Comic-Style – Learning how…

Servers

No server Deploy post as of Tuesday morning. There is a 16-hour old post this morning in last week’s that says no rolls this week… So, I guess no rolls.

OH… WAIT… The post appeared just after noon.

Main channel no roll. Remains on #19.01.25.523656.

Blue Steel and Le Tigre roll to version #19.03.07.525089. The changes are Internal Fixes (shocker) and fixes to EEP.

Magnum gets version #19.01.25.523656. Just Internal Fixes.

I am seeing a few more people post about being logged off at 15 to 20 minutes. Some European people are dealing with huge packet loss. Russians are protesting Putin’s isolating the Russian Internet net from the rest of the world. Many thought it impossible. But China has done it, Google is helping. So, it looks like Putin will do it.

There is an ongoing thing with region owners notice less available script time. An investigation is on the Lindens to do list after EEP rolls out. Continue reading

Second Life News + 3rd Party 2019 w05 and 06

The third-party Dev UG meeting was short and griefed. The video is here. Pantera Północy, the videographer, edited most of the griefing out. Annoying.

Servers

The main channel got an update, #19.01.25.523656. Has logging to gather baseline information on simulator performance in various areas of interest and additional internal logging. So, they are now getting data from the majority of the grid.

N383 What To Wear

What To Wear

If you drive, fly, or sail now would be a good week to be active. Of course, Tuesday afternoon is a good day to drive, fly, or sail as the most regions have just been restarted.

Continue reading

Second Life News 2019 w05

There is no Deploys thread this week. From the Server-Scripting UG we hear,

[12:05] Simon Linden: For server news, there wasn’t an update to the main channel today but tomorrow will see 3 different RCs
[12:06] Simon Linden: We’ll have a new maintenance update in one channel
[12:06] Simon Linden: Another that only has internal changes
[12:07] Simon Linden: and _maybe_ an update for the EEP servers, but Rider is going after a bug that’s blocking that from moving forward
[12:07] Joe Magarac (animats): The “time is stuck” bug?
[12:07] Simon Linden: exactly Joe
[12:07] Simon Linden: yeah that one is a show-stopper …. and he’s working on it right now

Server-Scripting Meeting

So, no roll to the main channels and 3 updates likely coming to the RC channels Wednesday.

*Ariel*

*Ariel*

Also, notice:

Scheduled – We will be conducting scheduled maintenance on our inventory system on Wednesday, January 30 from 6:00 AM until 7:00 AM PST. During this time, some residents may experience difficulty rezzing items.

Continue reading