Category Archives: Cool VL

Second Life Technology Updates: September 2025 – Revised

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A reader, rhet0rica, noted that much of the previous September report was fake. Seems fake news is everywhere. But rhet0rica caught it. I went looking to see what happened. An interesting conversation followed with Grok about why it gave me a load of BS. I may write about that later.

Old Comuter
Created with Adobe Firefly…

Below is an actual comprehensive summary of Second Life™ technology updates, new features, and releases for September 2025, covering official Second Life (SL) platform changes, viewer updates (both official and third-party), and related tech announcements. The summary is based on verified information from the specified sources, filtered strictly to the period of September 1–30, 2025, and excludes non-tech topics like events or community news. The report is organized by major update categories. Notice the references: [web:1] and similar. These now actually do point to the subject discussed.

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Second Life™ Technology Update Summary: September 2025

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This month’s summary covers “Second Life™ (SL)” technology updates, new features, and releases from September 1, 2025, to September 30, 2025, focusing on official platform changes, viewer updates (official and third-party), and grid/performance improvements. Information is synthesized from official Second Life sources, third-party blogs, and relevant X posts, prioritizing factual details on announcements, rollouts, bug fixes, and integrations.

I am using Grok to collect and organize the information. Then I tweak and add to the text. Hopefully making it a bit more understandable.

Official SL Platform Updates

“September 3, 2025: PBR Materials Enhancements” – Linden Lab rolled out updates to their “Physically Based Rendering (PBR)” system, improving texture rendering for reflective surfaces and dynamic lighting. This update enhances visual fidelity in regions supporting PBR, addressing user feedback on performance lag [web:1](https://community.secondlife.com/news/tools-and-technology/).

There is an SL oddity apparently in all viewers. When capturing images, we residents call it photography, reflections are lost in the captured images unless the image and screen resolution are the same. I have not yet updated my monitor. So, I run at 1920x1080px. If I capture a higher rez image, usually 3000x1576px, the reflections are gone. ☹

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Summary of Tech and New Second Life Features Announced or Released in August 2025

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This summary organizes key technological updates, new features in Second Life™ (SL), and enhancements to SL and third-party viewers based on announcements and releases during August 2025.

There is some stuff for the every day not so technical user.

Second Life Core Platform Updates

Second Life Viewer Release: 2025.06 (Version 7.2.1.17108480561) – Released August 28, 2025

  • Inventory Favorites System: Users can now mark items (e.g., outfits, objects) as favorites for quick access, improving inventory management. This community-requested feature streamlines organization and reduces clutter.
  • Avatar System Improvements: Enhanced skeleton reset as a networked ViewerEffect for better synchronization; fixed hand size settings not saving; restored full 90-degree upward pitch in mouselook camera mode; resolved anti-flipping regression in mouselook.
  • Camera and Movement Enhancements: Improved arrow key movement description; fixed teleport history landing height issues; added “Disable Camera Constraints” and “Disable Minimum Camera Zoom Distance” options for greater flexibility.
  • Chat and Voice Fixes: Fixed empty conversation logs; enhanced emoji picker for correct insertion; resolved voice echo across regions (Vivox to WebRTC transitions); improved voice reconnection after tuning; fixed slider text truncation in voice settings.
  • Content Creation Tools: Mesh uploader now allows reducing material counts; detailed LOD (Level of Detail) information in Build Tools; better error messages for texture uploads.
  • UI and Text Polish: Automatic placeholder text selection in fields; fixed blurry thumbnails; resolved issues deleting links to worn objects; improved “Away” status handling.
  • Environment and Rendering Fixes: Fixed shadow FPS drops on Mac vs. PC; resolved stream toggle greying out; corrected viewer URI links for parcel maps.
  • Stability and Crashes: Numerous crash fixes, including those related to notifications, voice connections, and SD (Serialized Data) handling.
  • System Improvements: Enhanced performance for inventory finder floater; memory allocation fixes; OpenJPG and PBR texture panel improvements.
  • Impact: This release incorporates community feedback via GitHub and the SL Feedback Portal, focusing on quality-of-life enhancements. It builds on prior updates like glTF mesh import (from July) and supports ongoing WebRTC voice rollout. Download available via official SL site; full notes at releasenotes.secondlife.com.
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Second Life News Week #36

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General News

SL Travel

Ever wonder how the SL travel and places blogs find those awesome places?

It seems the Blogger & Vlogger Network has a list of them. (here) They also have a form one can fill out to add to the list. So, they find these places when people stumble-on or otherwise find them and add them to the list.

Only those who dream learn to fly

Only those who dream learn to fly

The list is titled Photogenic, Rezzable Sims. Rezzable? My first thought was griefers will LOVE this list. However, many of the locations require membership in a group to get rez-rights and a number of those groups have a Join Fee. About 20 of the 37 locations are listed as free. If there is a cost it is referenced in the listing. They also have the region’s maturity rating, PG, Moderate, and Adult. Nine are rated Adult, but not all 9 are hook-up places. And even those that are, look good.

The list apparently has some age. Several of the links landed me at places other than the obvious intended landing point but the correct region. However, a couple of regions were gone or repurposed.

I found Backdrop Cove (Map URL) in the list. Got some pictures. This place is not as crowded as Backdrop City. So, posing and setup was nicer. Also, you can rez stuff without having to join a group. They use a 60-minute return. It is a moderate region and the pose and animation stuff I saw was PG. Donations are appreciated. Please help out. Continue reading →

Second Life News Week #32

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General News

The Third-Party Dev’s meeting was a couple of weeks ago. We learned the BoM and Render viewers are very close to release. The EEP viewer was/is not quite ready.

So, file your JIRA’s on BoM.

The Render viewer would have released except for it being Linden Summit Week. But… it got an update this week and did not release…

No new rendering projects until the current ones are released.

Parcel Voice has some problems the Lindens are considering solutions for. See BUG-227350. The JIRA was accepted for its value as a problem statement more so than its presented solution.

Topless Cruisers has a new hangout, Eden Naturopolis. There are 7 boat slips for rent in the area. Also, this location is often the destination point for Tuesday’s cruises. Bouncing boobies parties.

Topless Cruising Map for August 6, 2019

A number of Lumiya Viewer users showed up at the Server-Scripting UG. You probably know the UDP turn-off for assets killed Lumiya for anything but chat text use. I expect they will show up at Oz’s Wednesday morning UG for Open Source.

There is a mobile viewer in the works. But, don’t expect a Lumiya replacement this year or probably not even next year. WAY MORE people are going to have to show up at meetings asking for help.

Servers

Last week the Linens were having their Summit Meeting. We don’t get to know everything going on in those meetings. There is usually a bunch of planning going on. I suspect we will hear a bit of that news in the coming meetings. Otherwise, there has not been much news.

There is no Deploys post today.

My Zindra region has not restarted as of 11:00 AM SLT.

Simon Linden told us at the Server-Scripting UG that we will get a new RC release next week, maybe two. Continue reading →

Second Life News Week #25

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Other News

Today, Tuesday, was the Server-Scripting UG meeting with the quarterly music thing with Tukso this quarter.

TP/Crossing Disconnects – Lindens think they have most of the problem handled. They aren’t saying much as they don’t want to influence the bug reporting. I think additional fixes are in Blue Steel, but I don’t have any objective information to say so.

The Le Tigre and Magnum regions have the EEP fixes for legacy viewers… the ones we are using.

SL16B – Second Life’s Birthday Party opens on 20th June and runs to 8th July.

June 24 – This is the last day you can renew at the old rates for Premium Membership. Last Call.

Voice Maintenance – June 19th the Lindens will be pulling maintenance on the voice system. They will start at 8:00 AM SLT. People may have problems while system maintenance is in progress. Watch Grid Status for an announcement of completion. You may need to relog after that to get voice working.

Facebook’s Bitcoin – Facebook is planning to get into the cyber-currency game. Their block-chain coin will be named Libra… free? Does anyone think they are providing a free service from the goodness of their heart? I don’t. The concerns being voiced are based on FB’s history of privacy invasion. Now, they will have access to your spending and earning information. A FB alternative is MeWe.com.

FaceApp – This has recently become is a small thing in SL. It is an app for mobile devices to edit portrait images. It is quite fun. I just wrote a how-to on getting it to run on a PC or Mac: The FaceApp and Second Life  Continue reading →

Second Life News Week #22

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We have not had a Deploys post since 5/6, 3-weeks no post. Some have speculated that since viewers have a new release notes system the server’s release notes will be updating. But… rumor is no. Also, the wiki release notes have not been updated.

Centaur Photoshoot & Parade

Centaur Photoshoot & Parade

Monday was a holiday in the USA, Memorial Day – remembrance of those Americans that died in WWII.

So, the Lab was closed Monday. Things may be a bit rushed and behind today. I didn’t really expect a main channel roll today, but we got one. Also, I suspect the server update sequence is likely out of pattern from the TP-Crossing Disconnects problems. Continue reading →

Second Life News 2019 Week #17

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Since last Thursday my teleporting and crossing to other regions has deteriorated. Then today in the middle of the Server-Scripting User Group my Internet goes down. :/ I get disconnected from Second Life think I got bit by the SL bug. Then can’t relog. My computer can’t find SL… A little more troubleshooting and I realize I can’t go much of anywhere on the Internet. Call COX. They are on it. They know it is down.

Fantasy Faire : The Celestial Plain (1)

Fantasy Faire: The Celestial Plain – 2019

About 30 minutes later I’m back up according to the router diagnostics. But I can’t connect to much of any place. Oh… but my laptop can. It uses the default DNS servers and my Desktop uses Google and OpenDNS free. So, I change the DNS servers my desktop uses and all is great. SL works again and better than it has all this last week. Well dang.

So, are my disconnections from the SL server bugs or my DNS server problems or both? No way to tell.

Servers

This week the Deploys post tells us the usual server rollouts are changing. Monday, no changes. Tuesday RC Le Tigre and RC Blue Steel are to update to version 19.04.22.526534. I can’t find any release notes for this but it is very likely targeting the disconnection problem. On Wednesday the same version may roll to the Magnum and the Main Channel depending on Tuesday’s result. Thursday will depend on what happens Tuesday and Wednesday. Continue reading →