Server Deployments Week 19 – Recap

There were no server deployments!

Group Chat

As noted in part one of this report, the group chat updates were deployed to the back-end chat servers on Monday May 5th. The changes to group chat should be subtle, and may not be observable to many. Additional analytics are included in the code, which should provide further pointers on what else may need addressing going forward.

Group Ban Lists

Baker Linden’s work on adding the ability to ban troublemakers / spammers, etc., from groups with open enrollment is now getting relatively close to becoming available.

Baker has recently closed what is believed to be the last of the server-side issues, BUG-5929. This meant that if the name of the group owner was accidentally added to a list of people to be banned from a group, the ban process would fail, with no-one in the list either being added to the ban list or banned from the group (although other than the group owner, anyone selected for banning would be ejected from the group).

The expected behaviour would be for all those named (other than the group owner) to be added to the ban list, with those who were already members of the group also being ejected and banned. Baker’s fix is to ensure this is now the case, and it should be available shortly on Aditi for testing (channel DRTSIM-234 14.05.05.289712 – which includes the Morris region where the Server Beta meeting is held).

Viewer-wise, a project viewer with the new code is expected to appear very shortly (it was running through the build process during the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May 8th). This should be added to the Alternative Viewers wiki page when available. The repository for the code has now been made public, so TPVs can start looking at it – but again, given the status of the viewer as a project release, don’t expect the code to immediately start popping-up in TPVs.

HOWEVER, it may be a while before the new group ban functionality can be used on the main grid, as there is an initial back-end host code update required prior to anything being deployed to any simulator channel. According to Maestro Linden, the Lab will likely want to run those updates for a week to check for any unexpected regressions prior to putting any simulators on a group ban RC.

In the meantime, the group ban capabilities can be tested on Aditi either using the project viewer (when available) or the existing test viewer.

Other Items

“Welcome to the Hotel California” – BUG-5961

An old issue recently came to light once more with BUG-5961 (originally entitled “I cannot leave a group that I joined”, but with the description subsequently updated by Maestro to “Viewer attempts full fetch of member list before allowing user to leave group” in order to better reflect his findings following investigation).

It’s not actually clear if this is a one-off situation, or possibly more widespread, as the bug report is specific to the group “Akeyo”.

However, Maestro’s thinking is that the problem is linked to the download of the membership list, which even with the Group Services fixes introduced in late 2012, can still take time to complete with some larger groups.

Essentially, you cannot leave a group until the membership list has been loaded, as the viewer must check to ensure that when leaving, you’re not the last owner of the group. Should the membership list take time to download, this can lead to a temptation to click the Leave button again, causing the download to start-over, resulting in the list not loading, thus preventing you from leaving it (hence the Hotel California quip, which I admit I stole from Maestro!).

The Lab is looking into this issue further, although it may be a while before any resolution is found. One workaround in the meantime is to run a client such as Radegast, which handles groups slightly differently to the viewer, and use that to leave the offending group.

Restore to Last Position

Restore to Last position was a popular feature which allowed anyone to take content to inventory and then re-rez it later at the same position. While there were issues with the capability (such as using it to rez an object in a different region, with a different topology to the one where it was originally taken back to inventory resutling in an object to “vanish”, as it rezzed underground or something), it was broadly seen as beneficial.

However, it was also subject to exploitation, which is why the server-side behaviour for it was changed by the Lab some time ago such that the function will only work if you have rezzing rights at 0,0,0 in a region. If you do not, any attempt to use Restore to Last Position will fail with a notification that you don’t have the required rezzing permissions. The viewer-side code for the capability was also removed from the SL viewer, although TPVs have retained it.

A further issue with the capability has been with No Copy objects. If Restore to Last Position is used on these when the user doesn’t have rezzing rights at 0.0.0 in a region, they not only fail to rez – they also vanish from inventory, requiring a relog in order to get them listed again.

However, BUG-5955 “Restore to Last Position (used only by TPVs) causes content loss” highlights a problem where at least one type of No Copy object can be permanently lost from inventory if Restore to Last Position is used even in a region where the user has rezzing permissions at 0,0,0. Not even a subsequent re-log sees the item reappear in inventory.

Given the unpredictable nature of Restore to Last Position, the Lab is considering removing or blocking all support for it viewer-side until such time as a fix for issues can be found / it can be made to work more predictably in all cases.

As an alternative, and given the function’s popularity, it has been suggested a restriction preventing its use on No Copy objects should be implemented. The Lab may be taking this under consideration. This is the option Firestorm have indicated that they intend to implement with their upcoming release (which may as a result be delayed until the code is implemented and tested).