Firestorm

Second Life® Monthly Technology & Community Report – August 2026

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And another month goes by… There is quit a bit happening in SL. I’m not that into it, but Linux support seems to be coming back. Several items are taking longer than anticipated… normal for software development. There are changes that will likely effect you.

Second Life Policy Making
Second Life Policy Makers

Official SL Platform Updates

  • August 3: Simulator release 2026-08-03.30838755483 deployed. It fixed region connection failures at login, teleport, and region crossing, and resolved a long-running region-handoff problem around Blake Sea and other water sims (Canny server#2666). The same fix reopened server#1899: after an unclean disconnect (for example a viewer crash), reconnection to a recently visited region can fail intermittently.
  • August 3: Linden Lab reversed the April Mainland plan and confirmed that Gaeta 1 will remain open. Relocated holders may stay where they moved or request help returning; mid-relocation cases are handled individually. Zindra expansion regions also stay. Near-term Mainland work listed in the same post includes open-water homesteads for sailing and repairs to legacy baked region edges that cause crossing problems.
  • August 12 / effective August 17: Automated Marketplace maintenance began. Products unlist if the merchant has not logged in for one year and that product has had no sale in one year. Entire stores disable if the merchant has not logged in for two years and the store has had no sale in one year. Nothing is deleted; merchants can reactivate listings by logging in and updating them.
  • Late August: User Group notes placed the next named simulator update, Nectarine, as the expected vehicle for a new game-control UDP message and for limited region-crossing work (Pepper Linden) via the Snack RC channel. SLua/Luau work continued in public repos (integers, shared GC planning, script recompile caveat for testers). Official Linux viewer packaging and download-page work is tied to the 26.4 Lua Editor train rather than a separate ship date.
  • August 25–26: SLS Main and RC channels were restarted without a new simulator deployment.

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Second Life® Monthly Technology & Community Report July 2026

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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.

SL Computer Update
Computer Update via Nanites

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).

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Second Life® Viewer Comparison

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Just 3 viewers. More about my curiosity about AYAstorm than a real PSA.

I am surprised how much slower AYAstorm is than Firestorm. I did notice AYAstorm includes OpenSIM support. Maybe that slows it down, but I doubt it. I tried to get AI to give me some idea of how much OS support might slow the render/FPS. That was pretty much a dead end. What little I could get from AI suggests what I already surmised, it is the render pipeline accounting for the difference. But there is no solid evidence that is the case.

Note, this test is not useful for comparison to earlier tests, at least for the Ground Level test. I have changed my front yard. Adding trees and grass and stuff has changed the render cost. The green Room (now orange), Nelsonia, Arapaima, and Warehouse 21 tests should be comparable.

I put some effort into making sure the Graphics settings are the same for all the tests.

AYAstrom Render
AYAstrom r31.2 – Render Test

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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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