The Beta Preview has been updated with a new version of the Second Life simulator for public testing.
PLEASE NOTE: This is an update of the server-side code that runs at our data centers. This is not a viewer update. Please do not post about viewer problems here, as it distracts from the core discussion about beta testing of the next release of the simulator (server) software.
This version includes fixes for many important issues, including what we hope is a resolution for the llTargetOmega (spinning things stop spontaneously and don’t start again) problem. The Beta Preview is a separate system, and can be entered using the beta viewer, which can be downloaded on our beta software download page. I just noticed that the release notes link on that page is out of date, and will have it removed as soon as possible. The notes below describe the specific changes in this release.
The Mono regions on the beta grid were updated with new binaries yesterday that resolve SVC-1421, but more importantly merge the Mono changes with Havok 4. There are now very few open issues remaining, so if you haven’t already, please recompile your scripts to Mono on the beta grid and test them. If you find any problems, please file them as JIRA issues here, or tell us about them at the Mono office hours held in Sandbox Goguen MONO on the beta grid on Wednesdays at 8AM and Fridays at 3PM.
The video above shows Blueman Steele’s LSL version of Conway’s Game of Life running side by side on the LSL and Mono virtual machines. The LSL version running on the left was recompiled to produce the Mono version on the right without making any changes to the LSL source code. Not only does the Mono virtual machine run the cellular automaton over 4 times faster than the LSL virtual machine, but it also uses less than 25% of the CPU time consumed by the LSL version. If you have any other good demonstrations of Mono in Second Life, please let me know.
Thanks again for your continued support throughout the Mono beta process.
The Mono regions on the beta grid were updated with new binaries on Friday that resolve the following issues:
*SVC-1956 Event handler and global function name collision
*SVC-1969 Errors when rezzing, executing, derezzing
*SVC-1403 llRemoteLoadScriptPin start param always 0
*SVC-1836 Exception when mono gets ISO-8859-1 expecting UTF-8
*SVC-1950 Delayed detach event breaks event handler calls
*SVC-1372 Duplicate events in Mono cause compilation failure
*SVC-1862 Listen event performance worse under Mono
*SVC-1898 llGetInventoryKey Failure
*SVC-1328 UThread Injection failure on function return
Unfortunately there was a problem with our fix to SVC-1372 which is causing a lot of scripts to fail to compile. We’re working on the issue now and will deploy a fix and post an update here as soon as we have a fix.
Thanks again for all your support throughout the beta process. We hope to see you at the office hour in Sandbox Goguen MONO on the beta grid on Wednesday at 8AM and Friday at 3PM.
[UPDATE: We have deployed a new LSL compiler to the Mono beta hosts which should resolve the issues caused by our initial fix for SVC-1372]
Second Life Simulator v1.20.0.84105 resolves several important issues discovered through deployment of our new simulator to all of Second Life last week.
In particular there are fixes that should improve performance on Openspace regions, camera behavior and the physical representation of dimpled spheres. Details of these fixes are provided below.
The Havok™4-based Second Life simulator v1.19.3.83444 has been deployed to the Beta Preview. If this version looks solid on the Beta Preview overnight and into tomorrow, then tomorrow (Friday) we will deploy this version to the Early Adopter regions.
The Havok4-based Second Life simulator v1.19.3.82980 has been deployed to the Beta Preview. This version integrates some updates from the release-version simulator on Second Life, and another round of bug fixes.
Thanks to all of you who have been going to the beta grid, testing your scripts under Mono, and giving us the feedback we need to get Mono ready for prime time. As usual, we will continue to hold office hours on the beta grid, right in the middle of Sandbox Goguen MONO. Babbage’s office hour is on Wednesdays, 8 am PDT, and Periapse’s is on Fridays at 3pm PDT. For more info about Mono or how to try out the Mono beta, see the wiki page.
The Havok4-based Second Life simulator v1.19.1.82355 has been deployed to the Beta Preview. The Early Adopter regions will be updated early next week, after this version has had a few days of testing on the Beta Preview.
What Has Changed In This Version?
Changes in this build include (SVC items were submitted on the public jira issue tracker / DEV items are internally discovered issues / there are a few in this list that were fixed without jira tracking #’s…). (more…)
The Mono regions on the beta grid were updated with new binaries today that resolve the following issues:
*SVC-1341 Empty loop sim stall
*SVC-1766 Event handlers taking keys do not work
*SVC-1772 Assigning literal value to key exception
*SVC-1811 if (key) causes uthread injector failure
*SVC-1483 POST is broken
*SVC-1345 llReleaseCamera uti failure
*SVC-1697 Dataserver request test fail
*SVC-1770 key assign with global causes script to fail
*SVC-1776 Comparing key gives exception or uti error
*SVC-1691 System.ArgumentException in conversion input
*SVC-1694 GET causes mono exception
*SVC-1777 money event does not receive key of giver
*SVC-1707 Key causes invalid IL exceptions
Apologies for missing the Mono office hour yesterday. We hope to see you at the office hour in Sandbox Goguen MONO on the beta grid on Friday at 3PM and next Wednesday at 8AM.Thank you again for the great response to the Mono beta and for your continued support.
The Havok4-based Second Life simulator v1.19.1.81747 has been deployed to both the Beta Preview and the over 500 Early Adopter regions. This version resolves 15 of the remaining issues and brings us to the point of having a first release candidate of the simulator. More fixes are still in process – this is not the last build – but we are getting much closer to a version that can be integrated with release and become the next Second Life simulator.
We are getting close to a release-ready version of the new Havok4-based simulator. The team will be continuing to work on issues. I will be posting more information about expected timetables soon (but not with this blog post…)
The team is committed to the quality of this new simulator version, and will be remaining together to work issues after the Havok4 simulator is released to Second Life at large. (We will not practice “release and run” with this simulator, just as you have seen that we do not practice “post and run” on the blog… We’ll still be around . We are trying to get the benefits of reduced simulator crash rates out to all of Second Life as soon as it is reasonable, and will clean up lower level issues going forward from that point.
Why Did We Not Deploy This Version To Beta Preview First This Time?
The original plan was to deploy this build to the Beta Preview only, and test it over the weekend before deploying it to the Havok4 Early Adopter regions. As a result of a recent security exploit and the accompanying fix, I decided that it would be better to bypass the Beta Preview period than to leave the exploit “in the wild” with our Early Adopters.
I hope that we have caught any major issues that might be in this build, and that you will understand this decision is based on a security first philosophy, even though it may risk some other problems. If we missed something major, the back-out plan will be to pave over the Havok4 Early Adopter regions with the current Second Life simulator temporarily. I will be on and offline for the next several hours and will be making that call later on tonight (keep this version online or pave it over with the release version).
What Has Changed In This Version?
Changes in this build include (SVC items were submitted on the public jira issue tracker / DEV items are internally discovered issues / there are a few in this list that were fixed without jira tracking #’s…).
. We are trying to get the benefits of reduced simulator crash rates out to all of Second Life as soon as it is reasonable, and will clean up lower level issues going forward from that point.
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