Server Deployments: week 7 – recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

On Tuesday February 11th, the Main channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the RC channels in week 6, which includes a crash fix.

There were no updates to the RC channels.

Upcoming Deployments – week 8

As there was no deployment to the RC channels this week, there is nothing to be promoted to the Main channel in week 8 (week commencing Monday 17th February). However, according to Maestro Linden, speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday February 13th, there will a new maintenance package deployed to the RCs on Wednesday February 19th.

This will include a fix for an issue reported in BUG-5034, whereby if an Estate Manager restarts a region and then immediately teleports out when there are no other avatars in the region, the Estate Manager will be logged out of Second Life just after the teleport completes.

That Estate Managers tend to encounter the issue may be purely down to the fact they are the last to leave a region on a manual restart; there are reports of some being disconnected when teleporting out of a region during a rolling restart.

The issue has been problematic for the Lab to reproduce, and is possibly related to users with higher ping times. The thinking is that the restart is occurring before the avatar is properly reported as having left the region (there is still a child agent present), so the viewer ends up disconnecting. The fix being implemented is to adjust the restart process so the simulator waits just a little longer prior to the actual restart being initiated.

SL Viewer Updates

HTTP RC

Following the promotion of the Fitted Mesh viewer to the de facto release viewer on February 10th, The HTTP RC became the first of the existing RC viewer to be updated to include the Fitted Mesh code and was updated to version 3.7.1.286567 on February 13th.

Facebook Hotfix RC

A new RC appeared on February 12th, with the release of version 3.7.1.286557 on February 12th. This again includes the Fitted Mesh code, but the release is actually to fix a problem in the viewer’s built-in web browser which makes it impossible to login correctly into Facebook.

This puts the total count of current RC cohorts in the viewer release channel at 5, so it is unlikely there will be further RC viewers appearing until this list has been thinned down a little (which does not mean there will be no releases of any project viewers waiting in the works).

Avatar Physics

The arrival of fitted Mesh, which works with most avatar physics (except belly), has led to renewed discussion over issues around problems with avatar physics being so dependent upon viewer frame rates, with the result that lower frame rates can result in wildly exaggerated movement (see both VWR-25545 (publicly viewable) and FIRE-12386. for details).

Whether or not the issue will be addressed (or can be reasonably addressed) remains to be seen; how many people actually use avatar physics is unclear. However, the fact that avatar physics can be used with fitted Mesh may see a wider use of the former as the latter gains more of a foothold, in turn increasing calls for the issue to be dealt with.