As expected, Linden Lab has begun testing 64-bit builds of Second Life server software, deploying a 64-bit version of the software intended for the new Class 6 servers onto an internal test grid. The software appears to be a straight 64-bit build of 1.24.9(98659), which should be able to function as a 64-bit binary, pending any oddnesses.

Those 'oddnesses' would include implicit or explicit assumptions about the size of storage types, as well as the possibility of sending unrepresentably large values to other systems that only support 32-bit storage types. Additionally there are potentially increased disk, file and memory storage requirements.

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Continue reading Linden Lab begins testing Class 6 servers

Linden Lab begins testing Class 6 servers originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

During the week, SLS-1.24.7 was applied to the Second Life servers, containing one bug-fix and three unspecified security fixes. This ran over the usual three-stage deployment process.

On Friday, SLS-1.24.8 was applied as an emergency deployment with no advance notice, over a five hour period. Apparently there is still more work to finalize the operation of 1.24.8, but there are no published release notes or hints as to what modifications it contains, why the rushed deployment or what additional work remains to complete it.

Already, we're seeing signs of 1.24.9 being run through testing -- and it wouldn't surprise us to see it start to roll out by Tuesday. Something's definitely wrong, but it is hard to say what. Judging by the predominance of security fixes in 1.24.7, the rushed deployment of 1.24.8 and the preparation of 1.24.9, we'd have to guess that it is either an exploitable (or already exploited) security problem, or a considerably embarrassing bug.

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Continue reading Second Life upgrades in limbo

Second Life upgrades in limbo originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continuing the attempts to further stabilize the new Second Life server code, SLS-1.24.5 will be replaced with SLS-1.24.6 in the latter half of this week, Wednesday through Friday. There are also some signs that precursors to yet another revision, SLS-1.24.7 are already undergoing preliminary testing.

The version that is slated for deployment this week appears to be build 96673, which is marked as containing fixes for two bugs - one of which was supposed to have been fixed in SLS-1.24.5, and another which was partially fixed in that release. Both bugs impact scripts, as you might expect, and have impaired and disrupted a large quantity of post-mono user-generated content, sometimes in quite subtle ways.

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Continue reading Second Life SLS-1.24.6 rolling out this week

Second Life SLS-1.24.6 rolling out this week originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Linden Lab have been working very hard to attempt to bug-fix and stabilize the SLS-1.24 Mono-enabled Second Life simulator server software (try saying that three times, fast). Since Monday, the 8th of September, we've counted no less than 19 distinct versions of 1.24.5 that got far enough along to test.

Right now, the top candidate (and the version that has been rolling out onto the Second Life grid) is build 96115. A test rollout of build 96378 was attempted, but was somewhat crashier than 96115, so it was replaced with the slightly earlier build. There are several later builds already being tested and assessed as candidates for the next rollout, the latest being build 96505. There's quite a list of fixes, almost (but not entirely all scripting related). Notes for builds up to 96378 are available, however it isn't yet clear what any more recent builds might contain.

While all this is going on, the viewer team has managed to crank out a new release-candidate (1.21-RC2), which runs on the Mac PPC, and for those of you who were having that nasty crash-or-freeze-every-minute-or-six problem, or issues with sculpt textures, there's a fix for those too.

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Continue reading Second Life 1.21(RC2) available. SLS-1.24.5 rolled out

Second Life 1.21(RC2) available. SLS-1.24.5 rolled out originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Over the course of the week, we've been getting scattered reports of problems on the Second Life grid relating to the new Mono script-engine runtime that was deployed as a part of SLS-1.24. The key phrase seems to be "catastrophic mono bytecode serialization failure".

The problem itself doesn't appear to be highly reproducible, but by the accounts we're getting, when it occurs, the Mono runtime flings a complex exception, and most or all of the Mono scripts in the simulator where the exception occurred shut down, and stay that way, pending individual and manual attention.

SLS-1.24.4 rolled out on 3 September, though that apparently did not correct the problem, as we have reports of it from users as late as 4 September, despite the relative infrequency of its occurrence.

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Continue reading Major failure plagues Second Life Mono deployment

Major failure plagues Second Life Mono deployment originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Linden Lab's unannounced SLim lightweight Second Life client is available now. We grabbed it out of the starting gate and took it for a bit of a spin for an hour or so. It looks a great deal like Linden Lab needed some new feature or API in the SLS-1.24 server deployment to support this. As a result, preparation of the SLim software for release prior to an announcement at this year's Virtual Worlds -2008 conference in Los Angeles must have been awfully rushed.

We expected this to be the first purpose-designed client for Second Life to come out of Linden Lab since the original in 2002, but actually ... it isn't. The real story is rather more surprising.

SLim is a Vivox product and it connects to Vivox servers. Connection with Second Life and its grid and servers is only very peripheral. How much involvement Linden Lab actually had with any of this is debatable.

The short version: It does a lot less than you'd hope, and setup of the whole show is far clunkier than you'd like. On with the show...

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Continue reading Hands on: The Second Life SLim client is here

Hands on: The Second Life SLim client is here originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Linden Lab have issued a new Second Life viewer release-candidate series. Starting with 1.21(RC0), this new viewer series offers support for the current rollout of Mono and touch-position scripting, among other things.

There's also new text colorization. It's configurable, but does rather go a long way towards invalidating a lot of existing tutorial and informational material that currently exists. That said, it is kind of visually appealing, if you have a compatible color set loaded. Look for those settings under Edit > Preferences > Text Chat.

If you're scripting in a non Mono-enabled simulator, you might want to pass on this release. Syntax errors are not reported for scripts compiled with 1.21(RC0) on a version SLS1.23 simulator. If all goes well, it will be a non-problem by the end of the week as SLS1.23 simulators are upgraded.

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Continue reading Second Life release candidate viewer 1.21(RC0)

Second Life release candidate viewer 1.21(RC0) originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

According to an announcement by Linden Lab, the SLS1.24 (version 1.24 of the Second Life server/simulator code) rollout to servers is happening right now. While Linden Lab have normally given at least a little advance notice, and a schedule for the server-side software updates (which can be disruptive), no such notice or schedule were published. All we have been told is that it will "take a number of days"; we assume that is probably different to the usual three-day schedule. Actually, if you haven't been reading Massively lately, this whole update probably comes as a complete surprise.

As we mentioned previously, the 1.21 release candidate viewer that you'll need in order to take full advantage of this release isn't due until next week, though you can probably access the Mono functionality with the preview grid viewers -- just remember to change the grid target to -grid agni in order to access the main grid.

Patch notes are after the jump.

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Continue reading SLS 1.24: Second Life rolling update, rolling out now

SLS 1.24: Second Life rolling update, rolling out now originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Linden Lab is expected to roll out SLS1.24 (version 1.24 of the Second Life server/simulator code) this coming week with both the new Mono script-engine runtime and Qarl Linden's new touch-position code. We're confident that you'll see announcements for those on Monday or Tuesday (the 18th or 19th) describing the update schedule through the course of the week. We wouldn't be surprised to see something of a media push accompanying it; that would be consistent with the way the new Lab is operating these days.

The Mono script-engine runtime increases the amount of memory available to new or recompiled LSL scripts (from 16K to 64K) -- though at the expense of increased memory consumption -- while also largely increasing the speed of them, especially for intensive calculations. Mono is, primarily, part of the platform stabilization project rather than a new feature for the sake of new features.

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Continue reading New Second Life features due next week

New Second Life features due next week originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Tonight (Monday), Tuesday and Wednesday, Linden Lab is having yet another attempt at rolling out the SLS 1.23 update to Second Life servers. Now versioned as SLS1.23.2, there aren't any new changes over the original version. Just fixes for things that prevented the deployment from following through.

While not the most fraught upgrade the grid has had, this one is turning into an epic mini-series in its own right, and we wish Linden Lab the very best of luck in getting it successfully deployed. If you're wondering where Mono is, that's currently scheduled as SLS1.24 and if all goes well, should be in the next round of rolling updates.

SLS1.23. Take three originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.