Second Life and Virtual Worlds
The Linden made series of viewers
I’ve done pretty well with the development viewers, until today. I installed Second Life 3.1.1 (242977) Oct 16 2011 10:50:04 (Second Life Development). I started it and crashed shortly after login. I think as soon as it tried to render the world.
We have seen lots of viewer crashes from the OpenGL problems. Most of those have been with the new video cards and drivers. With this version of the SLViewer I got an error with my 8800 GTS and driver 270.61 (8.17.12.7061).
As much as I use different viewers, I miss lots of the problems. Lance Corrimal, the Dolphin Viewer person, pointed out some of the problems in SL Viewer 3.x. There are a couple of gotcha’s.
SL Viewer 3 and viewers based on version 3.x code are slow. I’ve been using the SL Development Viewer for so long I expect it to be slow. If you are just moving to a 3.x based viewer… well prepare yourself. It affects the SL Viewer and third party viewers based on version 3 code.
We usually see these problems manifesting as problems with alpha layers. If you are wearing multiple layers then an outfit replacement only replaces one layer. That results in layers left behind from the previous outfit.
A work around is to remove the current outfit then add the new outfit. This does leave you nude for a few seconds. So, you need a changing room… or not, if you are an exhibitionist.
If you attempt to teleport more than one person at a time, you have likely run into this problem. Inviting more than one person to tp crashes the viewer.
Several people have not been able to upload Mesh in ADITI, the preview grid, but they can in AGNI, the main grid. Most often this is because they have not run through the Intellectual Property thing for ADITI. Yes, you have to do it twice, once for AGNI and once for ADITI. For ADITI visit: https://secondlife.aditi.lindenlab.com/
Also, after viewer and server updates some people are crashing when the attempt to tp to the mesh sandboxes. See: VWR-26698
Also, the 3.0.0 has a video gotcha that causes some people problems. If you are having a problem, visit the Snowstorm Page and get a copy of the latest development viewer. There are some video fixes included that have helped some users.
This is an old problem that has returned. You belong to a group, you get a Notice with an attachment. You click the attachment expecting a Note Card or Landmark to open. But, nothing happens. If you’re lucky to can go to the group’s list of notices, open the notice, click the attachment, and have it work. Or maybe not.
I’ve been noticing this in SLViewers 2.? and up. The first report was with viewer 2.0.0. My current Second Life 2.8.3 (237297) has the problem. I suppose it could be the server. Whichever is the case the bug is reported as a viewer bug. See the JIRA item SVC-7129.
If you are having the problem, please drop by the JIRA and click Vote and Watch. If you don’t already know, the Lindens look at the Watch number. I am sure they do not completely ignore the Vote number. But, attention comes to those things with high a Watch number.
Opensource Obscure has been warning us a new login screen was coming. It seems to be here. It came up in my SLViewer (2.8.3) this morning.
You can see what appears on the new screen here: http://viewer-login.agni.lindenlab.com/
The old screen can be seen here: http://secondlife.com/app/login – that may soon redirect to the new screen.
Older viewers may still use the old splash screen and some Third Party Viewers (TPV) will too. The rumor is the URL redirection will at some point be set to allow the new splash screen on older viewers.
Some TPV’s will switch over from their own screen. Some will likely create custom splash screens.
I often use the SLV Development viewer. I’m on one of the version 2.8.3 builds. So, I have a sense of how well it is or is not working. But, that tells me nothing about planning for the viewer. For that information I rely on the Office Hour or as it is now called the Viewer Evolution User Group meeting. Recently that meeting has not been happening. Actually for the last two weeks the Lindens are not showing up. This group was one of the most informative and communicative. Now it is one of the worse if not the worst. So, it is hard to know what is going on with the Linden Lab viewer.
Opensource Obscure noticed in the wiki a note in the 2.8.0 viewer release notes about versions of the SLViewer 2 series being blocked. Viewers from version 2.1.1 to version 2.6.8 will be blocked at logon. As the Lindens have promised the 1.23.x viewers are excluded and will be able to login.
I think there are enough code changes and new features in Second Life that one needs a 2.7 or better viewer to get the most out of SL. The blocked viewers are using support services that will likely be turned off in the coming days.