Viewers

General Viewer Information

Firestorm Viewer 4.4.2-34167 Released

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I see late yesterday the FS Team released viewer 4.4.2. There is an announcement on the FS Blog: Mandatory Firestorm 4.4.2 Update. This version fixes the problem of overloading the Linden stats servers. Users would not notice a problem. So, many might not update and stats indicate that would be the case. The result is this is a mandatory update.

Firestorm Viewer Download is here. Look in the right hand column, white area.

Firestorm Splash Screen
Firestorm Splash Screen

You may have found that your 4.4.1 viewer will no longer login. You get an update message on the splash screen. If you close it and attempt to login, you get another notice and the viewer does not login. If you close that one and attempt to login again, you find you are in a loop. The viewer is not going to login because the FS Team has told it not to. It is blocked by the FS Team. 

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Viewer Updates 2013-27

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We seem to be coming to a crunch point in viewers. The Lab is changing things so quickly third party developers have a challenge keeping up. Henri Beauchamp does well with Cool VL Viewer, which is a viewer based on V3 code with a vintage V1 user interface.

Kitty
Image by Kitty Barnett

Niran seems to have leapfrogged the Niran’s Viewer to having all the latest Linden features by jumping to a recent SL Viewer V3 model. Niran’s Viewer is now Nirans Black Dragon viewer. Niran’s features from previous versions are being added to the new SL V3 Viewer code in Black Dragon. Eventually Niran will have Black Dragon on a feature par with his previous versions.

So, both of those viewers have materials. Firestorm 4.4.1 doesn’t and Tonya Souther of the Firestorm Team explains why, in a blog post: Tracking LL’s big changes, and why the 4.4.2… well now that there is an emergency roll out… 4.4.3 version won’t either. 

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Firestorm 4.4.2 Emergency Rollout

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Emergency Bug Fix

The 4.4.1 version has a bug. It is going to get re-called the version 4.4.2 will be rolled out ASAP. This version will NOT need a clean install. You’ll see this hit today or tomorrow. It seems this version has a bug that overloads the stats server. Once the roll is available the 4.4.1 viewer will be blocked.

As of NOW the 4.4.1 version download is blocked.

The 4.4.2 version is not yet ready.

See: Emergency 4.4.2 Coming

Second Life News 2013-27

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As you know the Materials System has been released by the Lab. The third party viewers are picking up the project and adding it to their viewers. Cool VL Viewer and Niran’s Black Dragon have Materials. Firestorm 4.4.1 does not have Materials yet but, 4.4.2 is nearing release and will have materials.

There are fixes for problems in Materials System that are in the pipeline. One of those has to do with Ambient Occlusion on large objects. That is unlikely to be in Firestorm’s 4.4.2 release.

SSA

Server Side Appearance (SSA baking) is planned for the release the week of July 7-13. The Lab is expecting it may be on the 8th or 9th.

Firestorm and Phoenix users will see a huge notice on the viewer’s splash screen that they need to update. If you have not yet updated to 4.4.1, avoid the rush and do it now.

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Firestorm Considerations

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The FS Team is working on Materials, Sunshine, and adopting the CHUI to Firestorm. I am sure they would love to see all of those in 4.4.2. But, they aren’t saying what they will be able to do because they haven’t even been able to get all the Lab’s code for these features. The Lab is just not done with it. Things are changing as it is developed. You don’t try to hang pictures in a house before the walls are built.

Firestorm Viewer 4.4.1
Firestorm Viewer 4.4.1

The FS Team asked the Lindens if their release of a new viewer requiring a cache clear is loading up the asset server. Monty Linden says the asset system has lots of head room and is not the likely bottle neck. But, the inventory system that tracks what you have in your inventory is near capacity. Consider the inventory an index that deals with permissions and lots of interactions between you and backend systems of SL.

Jessica has explained that people are convinced clearing cache solves every problem and speeds up their viewer. The opposite is true. But, sometimes without a stop watch people cannot get past their subjective impression.

Whatever the case, it looks like the Lab is going to start making plans to look at cache operation. Monty Linden is going to take a look to see how a Firestorm-clear-your-cache release may be affecting the SL servers.

Most of the current inventory problems are with inventory cache, which is not the same as the basic cache. It is possible to clear inventory cache and not clear the basic cache of textures, mesh, and objects. But, it is a clear that has to be done manually.

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Firestorm Releases 4.4.1

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About 21 hours ago the Firestorm blog announced the release of Firestorm Viewer version 4.4.1-34164. From the teams point of view this is a MUST UPDATE TO release. If you are running the newest version of Firestorm 4.4.0, you STILL need to update to the new viewer.

Firestorm Viewer 4.4.1
Firestorm Viewer 4.4.1

A number of users have reported problems with the 4.4.0 viewer that have kept them from using it. The team has made every effort they could in the time frame available to fix problem discovered in 4.4.0. They believe they have fixed the majority of problems blocking use of 4.4.0. So, 4.4.1 should work for you.

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