Cool VL

Second Life Technology Report – June 2026

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This is a busy month with Pride celebrations and SL23B. Lots to see and do.

Official SL Platform Updates

  • June 8, 2026: Linden Lab announced fee adjustments, including reduced land tier prices for many Private region types (effective June 15), lower minimum L$ purchase fees, changes to LindeX transaction fees, and increased Premium membership subscription fees (effective for new/renewed subs from July 8). These aim to make land more affordable while expanding membership value.
  • Ongoing: SL23B celebrations (June 18–July 19) highlighted platform aspects through “Meet the Lindens” sessions, including discussions on engineering challenges like performance/rendering, OpenGL-to-modern API transitions, region crossings, WebRTC voice, and upcoming Lua scripting.
SL23B - Funky Monkey Temple
SL23B – Funky Monkey Temple

Simulator / Grid Updates

  • June 12 & 25: Simulator releases with routine maintenance and rolling restarts.
  • Grid Stability: Multiple rolling restarts. L$ transaction issues around June 25–26 (investigated and fixed). World Map region name display issues in some TPVs addressed.

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Second Life® Technology Updates Summary: May 2026

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Another month passes. There are several updates this month. Voice is the big one, for those that use voice. For the SL Viewer, you need to be on a version 26.1 or newer. Firestorm users need to be on 7.2.4 or newer.

Some of this month’s changes show where things are going.

SL Viewer 26.2 - May 2028
SL Viewer 26.2 – May 2026

Official SL Platform Updates

WebRTC Voice Service Full Grid Deployment

May 5: Linden Lab completed the rollout of the WebRTC voice service across the entire main grid (Agni). Previously available on ~25% of regions via RC channels, this shift ends reliance on the third-party Vivox service. Linden Lab can now directly maintain and enhance voice capabilities, with future potential for features like voice-to-text. Users were advised to use compatible viewers (official 26.1 or later, or updated third-party viewers) to avoid voice issues.

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Second Life® Technology Report – April 2026

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Tech-focused summary for April 1–30, 2026
Here is the update on last months activity in Second Life.

Official SL Platform Updates

  • April 1, 2026: Voice service disruption reported (connection issues and audio drops). Incident tied to ongoing WebRTC transition testing; highlighted need for full rollout improvements.
  • April 25, 2026: Unscheduled inventory maintenance affected login, rezzing, avatar display, and inventory access. Issue resolved same day; users advised to clear cache. – NOTE: If you are not having issues, don’t. I went through the outage and recovered without clearing my cache.
  • Throughout April: Continued WebRTC Voice testing on RC channels with maintenance sessions (e.g., April 22). Full grid rollout announced for May 5.
New Second Life Tech
My New Home Computer… NOT

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Second Life® Monthly Technology Report – March 2026

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I am running behind. RL is way busy just now. I’m late. Apologies.

So, this is mostly A.I. Reporting. I think all the important changes were caught. Let me know if something was missed.

Official SL Platform Updates

  • March 18, 2026: WebRTC-based Voice Limited Release – Rolled out to limited Release Candidate channels covering approximately 3.4% of the grid. This modernizes voice communication with improved quality, lower latency, and better stability. Users are encouraged to use the latest official Viewer or Firestorm Beta for optimal experience.
  • March 5, 2026 (recap of February features): Featured News highlighted ongoing Mobile improvements including Bubble Chat, Object Chat, and Single Tap for better in-world immersion and communication.
Hobit at Work
Hobit computer tech…

Viewer Releases

  • March 1, 2026: Black Dragon Viewer 5.6.0 released (third-party).
  • March 7, 2026: Megapahit Viewer 26.1.0.55026 released (third-party).
  • March 11–12, 2026: Official Default Viewer 26.1.0.22641522367 released – Added legacy (vintage) search functionality, WebRTC voice improvements, and various quality-of-life enhancements.
  • March 20, 2026: Second Life Mobile 1089 released – Introduced new user chatbot and Portuguese language support in the app UI.
  • March 20, 2026: Second Life Project Flat UI Viewer 26.2.0.22829286351 released – Focused on flat UI and font updates.
  • March 31, 2026: Release Candidate Viewer 26.1.1.23806384790 released – Introduced a one-click installer for easier setup.

Note: No new Firestorm release in March 2026 (last update was February 2026). Cool VL Viewer stable version noted post-March.

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Second Life® New Tech Summary – February 2026

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Reporting Period: February 1–28, 2026

I only quickly read through what the AI generated. I’ll add some info and context here and there from what I’ve seen. I think the AI did a pretty good job this time.

The Stone Computer
I am encouraging my friend to upgrade their computer…

Official SL Platform Updates

  • No new major platform feature announcements, scripting enhancements, rendering overhauls (e.g., glTF/PBR expansions beyond prior), LUA integrations, or avatar rigging updates were reported in official channels for February 2026.
  • The most recent simulator release referenced is from late January 2026 (2026-01-28.21455867889), with no new deploys noted in February.

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Second Life™ Technology & Community Report – November 2025

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Another month… almost the end of 2025. We got a new Firestorm Viewer release this month. I’ve been too busy with RL work to have played much with it. Nor have been flying. So, I am not sure if there is a difference in region crossings… I hope.

Official SL Platform Updates

  • November 6: Main channel promotion of server version 2025-10-24.858241 – includes fixes for group chat delays, simulator crash fixes related to script memory, and improved region crossing stability.
  • November 13: RC channels (RC=Release Candidates for BlueSteel, LeTigre, Magnum) received server package 2025-11-08.860122 – adds initial support for upcoming glTF PBR material overrides on legacy prims and several memory leak mitigations.
  • November 20: All main channel regions updated to 2025-11-15.861005 – introduces experimental HTTP/3 support for asset fetching (opt-in via debug setting) and fixes several avatar baking failures.
  • November 26: Emergency hotfix deployed grid-wide to correct a regression causing occasional region restarts when large numbers of PBR materials were in draw distance.

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