Second Life viewer 1.22 goes final

The 1.22 series of Second Life viewer release candidates has at last come to an end and has "gone gold" as they say. The 1.22 viewer today replaces the 1.21 viewer as the official Second Life viewer after a series of release candidates stretching back to last November.

There are an enormous number of fixes in this viewer release, though there's some known problems with advanced water presets and isolated reports of voice issues on all platforms. There's also a ton of localization work gone into this release, adding Polish, Hungarian and Danish support, and reworking some of the existing translations. Check after the fold for the full release notes.

New Features:

• Added: VWR-2662: OpenAL support on Linux
• Added: VWR-3434: New feature for text chat: "Whisper" as well as Say and Shout.
• Added: VWR-5659: Implement audio streaming via Gstreamer on Linux
• Updated: Update the Vivox SDK version 2.1.3010.6151 to support additional voice features and resolve known volume problems
• Updated: Revamped translation of the user interface in French
• Updated: Revamped translation of the user interface in Japanese
• Updated: More complete translations of the user interface in Chinese(Simplified)
• Updated: More complete translations of the user interface in Portuguese(Brazil)
• Updated: New translations of the user interface in Polish
• Updated: New translations of the user interface in Hungarian
• Updated: New translations of the user interface in Danish

Changes:

• Changed: VWR-8689: Change the location of "Mute" in the pie menu to avoid mis-clicks
• Changed: Replaced the View > Beacons sub-menu with its own window for more accurate control
• Changed: Replaced pick rendering with a raycast method, to increase performance per frame
  • Also added: new info display, Advanced > Rendering > Info Displays > Raycasting

Picking refers to identifying the object that is under your cursor. For example, when you alt-zoom, left-click, right-click, etc, a "pick" is performed to calculate what object you clicked on. For alt-zooming, it also determines where in 3D space you clicked. In version 1.22, the method for picking was refactored to use a raycasting method, which has enormous performance advantages.

In past viewers, the picking calculation has always caused the rendering of the world to stall briefly, and the result was a perceptible delay for the cursor to change its icon as you hover from one interactive object to the next.

• Changed: Have crashes from watchdog to report an error to stats instead of crash
• Removed Feature: Remove Advanced > Compress Snapshots to Disk
  • Note: the viewer no longer supports .j2c now that .jpg is available for Snapshots
• Removed Feature: Advanced > UI > Async Keystroke
• Removed Feature: Group Information > Land & L$ > Planning tab
  • Note: This tab has shown incorrect calculations since version 1.18, and fails to display any information in version 1.22. Because this feature has been improperly supported by the server for over a year, it is being removed to avoid further confusion.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed: VWR-996: wrong visualisation of animations
• Fixed: VWR-1180: Inappropriate uses of ctype (is*) functions in prevalidate methods for LLLineEditor
• Fixed: VWR-1814: Can not change the volume of looping sounds once they start (except with master volume control)
• Fixed: VWR-2054: Several scripting tooltips could be improved
• Fixed: VWR-2387: Animations always drift when uploading with an inner loop of anything except 0% - 100%
• Fixed: SVC-2771: Reset Script in Selection fails
• Fixed: VWR-3058: Viewer crashes trying to install on Korean Windows XP when the Windows username contains Korean characters
  • Also Fixed: Viewer crashes when run on Korean Windows XP when the Windows username contains Korean characters
• Fixed: VWR-3871: Prim position appears to be off, but script show it in the right place.
• Fixed: VWR-4070: OpenJPEG: LLImageJ2COJ::decodeImpl does not check if requested channel is higher than available
• Fixed: VWR-4589: Terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::out_of_range'
• Fixed: VWR-5808: Viewer always creates "url_history.xml" file in "C:\" directory.
• Fixed: VWR-7284: Mute of Object Doesn't Work
• Fixed: VWR-7331: llMapDestination can't TP to Skybox over 1000 meters, which was made possible in 1.20.6
• Fixed: VWR-8013: minimap causes lag when megaprims are present
• Fixed: VWR-8310: Cannot teleport from landmark - broken LLMsgVarData::addData()
• Fixed: VWR-8398: Previewing UV map as sculpted prim before uploading doesn't work any more
• Fixed: VWR-8944: Viewer crashes on logout (crash on QuickTime.qts )
• Fixed: VWR-9467: 1.21 RC will not install due to error opening file for writing (xulutil.dll etc)
• Fixed: VWR-9850: Report Abuse popup still references Police Blotter
• Fixed: VWR-10463: Detected video memory is too high and causes some texture downloads to stall or load forever

The slider in Preferences > General > Hardware Options > Texture Memory (MB) can be now be set only for values within a range of memory that Second Life can properly support. At this time, the texture memory requirements of Second Life are almost always below 512 MB. (Technical Note: the viewer will actually allow itself to use 1.5 times the value set in this slider, in some cases.)

In performance tests of the viewer, it can be counterproductive to allow textures to occupy too much memory, even when the GPU might support more. Too much allocated texture memory can cause memory to become occupied by unused textures, while other necessary textures have no memory left to use; this will routinely slow down the performance, or even crash, especially when some other large applications are running. Many residents who experience crashes have this value set at 512 MB, but find they can eliminate crashing by lowering the Texture Memory to a smaller value such as 256 MB.

Likewise, be aware that setting the Texture Memory too small can cause very frequent texture swapping, making inworld texture loading very slow. To mitigate this problem, the slider can only be set as low as 64 MB. (However, choosing a minimum of 128MB is more recommended, if you decide to choose a low value.) On some older systems with very, very low amounts of physical memory, Second Life will allow the slider to be set as low as 32 MB.

Thus the detected memory supported by Second Life is a range from 32-512 MB, or 64-512 MB, depending on your system. Your GPU may have more memory than this, but it will not be available in this Preferences option.

• Fixed (Removed): VWR-10469: Group Liability Info does not display.
• Fixed: VWR-10597: "EjectAvatarFullNameNoBan is missing from Alerts.xml" when trying to eject an avata*r
• Fixed: SL no longer detects correct amount of VRAM
• Fixed: Renamed both tooltip on llPushObject icon in the menu bar, and checkbox on About Land > Options to read "No Pushing"
• Fixed: Reword some error messages relating to not having enough L$
• Fixed: SLURL in chat log has space before it highlighted, link launches browser and teleport dialog
• Fixed: Advanced Menu>Rendering>Object-Object Occlusion... can be greyed out but still showing an X.
• Fixed: Basic DBus support for the Linux Client
• Fixed: View > Communicate should do the same action as the Communicate button
• Fixed: avatar animates when hitting escape while sitting on the ground
• Fixed: sorting of Group member list ignores the year
• Fixed: Switching focus from the SL Viewer in mouselook and returning causes loss of mouse control
• Fixed: linux client should send secondlife:// URLs to a running client if such exists
• Fixed: SecondLife.log reports a WARNING even when using the --login command correctly
• Fixed: On launch, Viewer doesn't clear keyboard input queue after becoming visible, so keystrokes for other apps can overwrite the First Name field
• Fixed: Verify that Landmark asset creation callbacks are happening with new server code
• Fixed: some gstreamer crashes (ll_try_gtk_init() not calling g_thread_init() )
• Fixed: Active Speakers is sorted the wrong way by default
• Fixed: safely reenable a forceDisconnect in LLEventPollResponder::error handler, when avatar's main region event poll is terminated
• Fixed: Improvements to the crash reporter when reporting freezes.
• Fixed: the default color for Text Chat from your avatar should not be blue
• Fixed: Watchdog sometimes does not crash as designed when reporting an error
• Fixed: Installer should pass language selection to viewer
• Fixed: default the Apple MacBook Pro (or Apple 8600M GT cards) to a lower Graphics default
• Added: Add extra debugging detection of alternate viewer.exe (second instance of SL) in windows
• Added: Add extra debugging info to help with graphics driver crashes
• Added: Implement dynamic time-outs in the viewer to support fetches of large inventories over HTTP/TCP (NOTE: This is not yet enabled on the Server)
• Added: Add startup state to viewer's crash report
• Added: Add crashed thread's ID to crash report
• Added: Improvements to Crash Stack Generator to trace driver crashes better
• Added: memory usage tracking to crash reporting
• Added: more information to heuristic stack walking on driver crashes, without editing the call stacks
• Added: Add extra debugging code for particle related crashes.

Rendering Fixes:

• Fixed: VWR-2: When editing multiple unlinked prims, trying to move/rotate by Build tool numbers suggests it will work on all prims, but only adjusts one prim.
• Fixed: MISC-707: /voicelevel3 gestures not triggered by voice chat.
• Fixed: VWR-3272: WindLight: Some supported graphics cards have disabled shaders
• Fixed: VWR-7957: Clothing skinning error with nVidia 177.xx series drivers
• Fixed: VWR-8012: Gray shading all over clothing and avatars in world since the Windlight roll out
• Fixed: VWR-8172: Camera is Unstable when editing an object
• Fixed: VWR-8668: appearance mode has a blue or red light
• Fixed: VWR-8920: moving the camera around, or zooming in on an avatar, some attachments 'disappear' from view
• Fixed: VWR-9358: Texture rendering problem Nvidia 178.13 release drivers
  • Note: This fix removes support for Palletized Textures (Advanced > Rendering > Features > Palletized Textures), which was the cause of this bug.
• Fixed: View is not reset when teleporting in flycam mode
• Fixed: Flycam mode does not disable alt-zoom icons
• Fixed: No Stars when Atmospheric Shaders disabled
• Fixed: Email Snapshot > Recipient's Email: field erroneously accepts non-ascii characters
• Fixed: Update GPU table for newer graphics cards
• Fixed: Add new GPU cards for 1.22

Snapshot Fixes:

• Fixed: "Send" becomes disabled in Send Postcard when you click on More>>
• Fixed: Snapshot Save As suggests filename Snapshot.jpg.jpeg
• Fixed: BMP format displays wrong file size in Snapshot floater

Small Usability Improvements:

• Fixed: SVC-2396: Particles not handled properly as hud
• Fixed: VWR-3336: Friend dots on the Minimap are not a different color (yellow)
• Fixed: VWR-4981: Windlight environment settings save in a bad location
  • Note: Now, custom sky and water presets will save to the location Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight
  • Known issue: Please see Known Issues for a bug that affects custom Water presets
• Fixed: VWR-7802: Save texture does not use texture name for default file name
• Changed: VWR-8689: Change the location of "Mute" in the pie menu to avoid mis-clicks
• Changed: clarify the option Preferences > General > Start location
• Changed: Replaced the View > Beacons sub-menu with its own window for more accurate control
• Fixed: LLFloaterBuy explicitly deselects objects when closed
• Fixed: Improve the apply logic of the following Preference tabs, to more correctly obey OK/Apply/Cancel:
  • Preferences > General, Input & Camera, Network, Web, Text Chat, Voice Chat, Communication

Crash Fixes:

• Fixed: VWR-4004: intermittent crash when switching to & from Fullscreen (result of corrupt texture handling)
• Fixed: VWR-10714: after downloading 1.22 RC1 (Mac) I crash every time I try to upload a sound
• Fixed: VWR-11433: leak/crash in particle system
• Fixed: Viewer crashes in and around fullscreen
• Fixed: crash on LLViewerObject::markDead
• Fixed: crash on LLViewerRegion::getPosAgentFromRegion
• Fixed: crash on LLTextureFetchWorker::decodeImage
• Fixed: crash on shutdown WARNING: LLAppViewer::sendLogoutRequest: Cannot create logout marker file
• Fixed: crash on LLEditingMotion::onUpdate
• Fixed: crash on LLNotifyBoxView::purgeMessagesMatching
• Fixed: crash on LLLogChat::loadHistory: Filename is Empty
• Fixed: crash on LLPrimitive::setVolume line 973
• Fixed: LLMenuGL::jumpKeysActive() crash
• Fixed: crash on opening Local Chat from Communicate in certain conditions
• Fixed: crash on LLImageJPEG::errorOutputMessage
• Fixed: Trying to interact with a 'Timed-out' viewer Causes Crash
• Fixed: Crash when hold-clicking on a prim that animates
• Fixed: Advanced > Debugging > LLError and Crash causes a hang rather than crashing
• Fixed: Remove Windows async keyboard support, which causes excessive thread monitor freezes/crashes

Partial Fixes:

• Partial Fix: VWR-4025: Upper left corner black triangle appears on the GMA 950 chipset
  • Note: Turned off draw pool ground on the intel 950 for Mac
• Partial Fix: VWR-5749: New Search won't scroll with Nvidia Graphics Card in Full Screen mode
• Partial Fix: VWR-8503: Textures loading worse in 1.21/1.22
  • Fixed: SVC-3628 Downloading a single texture takes too long
  • Fixed: VWR-11419: Textures reload perpetually
  • Fixed: Sculptie textures have too high a priority in 1.21 causing slow overall texture loading
  • Fixed: Eliminate redundant priority calculation
  • Fixed: Textures with no data (gray) are not prioritized properly
  • Fixed: Fetches with priority of 0 get stuck waiting for network data instead of terminating
  • Fixed: Negative priorities are not being handled correctly
  • Fixed: Modify a debug timer to measure texture fetch time instead of network download time
• Partial Fix: VWR-8932: 1.21 RC - Script editor performance degrades with large scripts
• Partial Fix: VWR-9985: Gesture editor crashes in non-EN-US languages
  • Note: Until the code is better internationalized, these 4 translations have been reverted to English
• Partial Fix: VWR-12025: If you reset Voice during a 1-on-1 Voice call, the viewer may show you "stuck" in the call even if you return to spatial Local chat
  • Note: This fix changes viewer behavior slightly when you consciously disable and re-enable voice: Viewer 1.22 and later will no longer attempt to put your avatar back into any voice call which you were in. Instead, after consciously disabling and re-enabling Voice, you will now always end up in local, spatial voice chat. (As long as you are on a land parcel which is allows voice.)
    • You will need to manually re-connect to any private or ad-hoc voice call that you were in.
    • This allows you to re-set your Voice settings more predictably, like a re-login to Second Life: The way to get out of a voice-confusion state is to disable & re-enable Voice Chat (in Preferences), and this puts you back in a 'known' state in the local, spatial channel.

Localization Fixes:

• French:
  • Fixed: Localize the viewer in French
  • Fixed: Revised some terminology in French translations
  • Fixed: modify the Voice Channel controls XML to correct the appearance of translated control buttons
• German:
  • Fixed: Change all single quotes ' to proper German quotes in the UI
• Brazilian Portuguese:
  • Added: CT-98 - CT-116: Brazilian Portuguese translations for remaining strings & phrases - version 1.22
  • Fixed: CT-136: improvements to Brazilian Portuguese in viewer 1.22
• Japanese:
  • Fixed: VWR-9833: Translation of some viewer options in Japanese is incorrect
  • Fixed: VWR-9940: Bad translation in Japanese: "shouts", "whispers"
  • Fixed: VWR-10994: Japanese alerts.xml has incorrect [_URL] string
  • Fixed: Revised some terminology in Japanese translations
  • Fixed: World menu > My Land > [AREA] calculations are broken in Japanese viewer
• Simplified Chinese:
  • Added: CT-117: Simplified Chinese full translation for the viewer
  • Fixed: VWR-11069: Installer displays "China" in language selection
  • Fixed: Chinese localization has overlapping text in Search window
• Polish:
  • Added: VWR-8798: Add a Polish translation to the viewer
• Hungarian:
  • Added: CT-85: Hungarian translations for remaining strings & phrases - version 1.22
  • Added: VWR-5733: Add a Hungarian translation to the viewer
• Danish:
  • Added: Add a Danish translation to the viewer
• Other improvements:
• Fixed: VWR-1874: Some locales incorrectly use Kbps to mean kbps
• Fixed: VWR-3801: In certain languages, parcel primitive usage is broken: displays only as 0 in About Land
• Fixed: Additional translations and fixes for German, French, Japanese, and Hungarian viewer
• Fixed: Fix obviously truncated text in Polish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Danish
• Fixed: the World menu should open the localized Account History / My Account web pages in German, Japanese, Korean, French
• Fixed: Localize the string "Mute List" in the Communicate flyout button
• Added: Six new Language choices in the installer application
• Added: Add translations for new features in French, Japanese, German, Danish

Known Issues:

• Occasional reports of problems with SL Voice on Mac and Windows.
• We're still tracking these issues, but continue to have difficulty consistently reproducing them:
  1. VWR-12010: Spatial Voice Chat remains in the previous region after a Teleport
  2. VWR-12023: After a viewer crash, Voice options and Talk button stay disabled on next relog
  3. VWR-12024: On some SL accounts, your first login takes 2-3 minutes to connect to Voice
  4. VWR-12025: If you reset Voice during a 1-on-1 Voice call, the viewer may show you "stuck" in the call even if you return to spatial Local chat

• Possible continued problems with Audio/Voice on Linux (introduced in RC8):
  1. VWR-11759: Linux stops playing audio streams
     • Streaming audio from parcels may not work without additional preliminary setup of a compatible 32-bit GStreamer on your Linux computer.
     • Please read the file README-linux.txt. Goto Section 3, INSTALLING & RUNNING, and see Section 5, TROUBLESHOOTING for Problem #6.
  2. VWR-11964: Linux music stream has intermittent noises
     • Please see that issue for possible workaround in the secondlife script.
  3. VWR-12136: Voice quality on Linux can be poor (a pulse of crackly noise) with Intel Audio chips, such as Intel ICH7 and ICH8.
     • We are investigating bugs in the voice SDK which degrade the quality of voice on some systems
  4. Linux may have no audio (ambient, UI, gesture sounds, etc) when using a USB headset
     • This problem does not affect Voice over a USB headset.
     • Workaround: An analog headset does not exhibit this problem.

• A limitation to the 'Hide Selected' feature:
  1. VWR-11860: using Hide Selected: if not in Edit mode, a right-click will not allow you to click the prim behind
     • Workaround: Simply Right-click > 'Edit...' to switch to Edit mode and this feature works correctly.

• Crash when using some Advanced Menu > 'Character' options with Hardware Skinning enabled:
  1. VWR-12273: Crash on Advanced > Character > Display Agent Target AND Advanced > Character > Show Collision Skeleton
     • When hardware skinning is enabled, selecting the Advanced Menu 'Character' options 'Display Agent Target' or 'Show Collision Skeleton' will cause the viewer to crash.
     • Workaround: Disabling the 'Hardware Skinning' in your viewer's Preferences > Graphics tab will allow safe use of both options.

• Calibration of Voice volume:
  1. Due to the difference in voice platforms used in earlier viewers to that of this version, the volume of other residents' Voices being transmitted with an earlier viewer may, in some cases, need to be adjusted the first time you hear them. However, Voice levels are more properly calibrated among any and all Residents who use the new voice SDK in this version 1.22.
  2. The actual voice volume may not match UI volume slider when a Resident quits and re-joins a private/Group call
  3. Voice volume may jump higher when joining a Group call or Conference call

• Bug in Advanced Water presets:
  1. VWR-12164: New presets for Advanced Water aren't being read from user's directory
     • There is a bug due to changes from VWR-4981; custom Water presets are saved to a new folder location but are not properly readable by the viewer from that location.
     • Workaround: The water preset you create is saved in the folder Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight, however cannot be read from there. The only way around this problem is to move the preset (.xml) file into the viewer's WindLight settings folder (C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\windlight\water) for it to be readable until this is fixed.

Downloads are available now for Linux, Windows and Mac.

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