#SL Mesh News Week 44

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Good meeting on mesh problems this week and the state of SL Viewers. For 3 or 4 months we have been having problems with the SL Viewers. Runitai Linden is working with many of the viewer’s OpenGL issues affecting us. These problems extend into third party viewers using the V3 render pipeline from the Lab. So, what can we expect?

Viewer Fixes Lagging Behind

Those of us that use project viewers and the development viewer know that many of the problems in the main SL Viewer and SL Beta Viewer have been solved. But, those fixes from the project and dev viewers are slow reaching the main viewer. Plus these viewers have had problems most residents would not want to put up with.

There are, what I consider, two primary hold ups delaying fixes moving to the main viewer. First is the chaos of rapid development. Multiple teams are tackling various aspects of the viewer. That makes for quicker fixes, but adds the problem of integrating and testing the fixes. More people and teams mean more work is done but communication problems increase. This means we see fixes in project viewers that take time to reach the development viewer which precedes the SL Beta Viewer which precedes the main viewer.

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#SL OpenGL Fixes

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In this week’s mesh meeting the topic of viewer fixes being stuck in the development pipeline came up. For some time we have been dealing with viewer issues from OpenGL. Runitai Linden said this in the Mesh Meeting: The GL compatibility pass that hasn’t shipped yet is still in QA — it’s a very large … Read more

Google Chrome No Disk Error

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For months I’ve been fighting with this error in my Chrome Internet browser. Several times I’ve searched for a fix or explanation without any luck. Today Google Search came up with an answer. \o/

The fix is not as elegant as I would like. It also reveals a lot about the workings of Chrome. The most negative part of this fix is the lost of the browser history. You can try the fix in two stages to see if you can keep your history. OR… read through the entire article here and try the alternate fix near the end.

The Fix

  1. Close Chrome
  2. Open your Task Manager. You can right click on empty background in the bottom tool bar and select Task Manager.
  3. Select the Processes tab.
  4. Click the column heading name Image Name to sort the display on names.
  5. Kill any processes named chrome.exe. Right-click the process and select kill. You get an ‘are you sure?’ You are.
  6. This is the end of the first step. Launch Chrome and see if this has fixed the problem. Often you’ll hear the solution as Reboot the computer. Rebooting kills this process. Manually killing it is much faster and easier.

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#SL Server News Week 43

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Over the weekend regions going offline became a problem. On Tuesday a Grid Status notice was posted regarding the problem. So far there is little more information on the problem. There is a little more below.

Main Channel

An update running on Blue Steel and Le Tigre has been promoted to the main grid. This update has fixes and a new feature. It brings an LSL (Linden Scripting Language) function labeled  llManageEstateAccess(). Some are already using the function to build tools that lets group members ban people without the member having to be an estate manager. Very handy.

Release Channel Update Window

The Lindens are improving the Wednesday timeline for updates. The window is to be between 7 and 11 AM PD/SLT. It can take longer if the hit bumps. In general updates to all three channels should happen within the window. Magnum is updated first, then Blue Steel, then Le Tigre. So, you can approximate where in the window your region fits.

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Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection

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Troubleshoot Your Second Life Connection

I made this post to avoid typing this information into the SL Forum a gazillion times. I was answering this type of question for the third time today. (Last updated April 2023)

There are a number of reasons one cannot log in or stay logged into Second Life. One of the more significant reasons is a poor connection. You may have a good Internet connection and a bad connection to SL. A poor connection can be caused by multiple problems in different locations. In this article, I try to give you some troubleshooting tips to help find where the problem is and who can fix it.

The problem may be in your computer, router, modem, ISP’s hardware, backbone hardware, Linden Lab’s hardware, or their software. We need to figure out which.

I’m Windows-based. So, this article is Windows oriented. But, all the same problems exist for Mac and Linux users. The Mac and Linux users will have to translate Windows commands. Sorry. I just don’t know them.

Troubleshooting

In the Viewer

If you can log into Second Life, do so. If not, check the grid status to make sure it is not a problem with Second Life. Or look at the concurrent user graph at Etitsup.com. You should see a smoothly curving line. An abrupt drop shows a general problem.

Also, try logging into a different region. Before logging in open Preferences->General->Start Location – Show at Login and enable the option. After closing Preferences, you’ll see a new field by the login button, ‘Start At:’. Try a Linden-owned region like Pooley or Furball. If you still cannot log in skip down to On Your End and SpeedTest.net.

Update: Jan 2018 – SpeedTest.net has changed. They no longer allow you to test to a city or server of your choice. So, for these tests, the site is was useless for our purposes. You’ll have to Google for an Internet speed test on a specific server and hope to find a good one. I’m looking… Found – see: Internet Speed Tests. – Update April 2023 – The Firestorm Viewer Team has information up on testing your connection speed HERE. The article has been updated but while they tell how little the Max Bandwidth setting will affect performance they also left all the advice for what it can affect from days of old. Don’t expect much from tweaking your bandwidth setting.

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Regions Crashing

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Grid status popped an announcement about 11:30 AM SLT/PT that regions are crashing and dropping offline. The problem started over the weekend. The Lindens are working on it. They say:  If your region is offline, please go to your support portal and submit a case using the following types:  “Land & Region” > “Report an Offline Region”.  This queue is … Read more