Firestorm 6.2.4

There is a new version of Firestorm available now. This version is not a quantum-leap in any particular direction and is unlikely to sway users of other viewers to the cause, were it not for the woeful issues that have hamstrung Singularity users recently. There is a fix for an issue afflicting users of Intel integrated graphics as well.

The update is more maintenance than anything else apart from some significant changes to Estate Management tools (EAM) and the incorporation of the changes to render pathway introduced by LL in their “Love Me Render” RC viewer. (Why do they do that, their sense of humour is worse than mine, if that is possible). The changes are not immediately obvious to me after several hours of use, apart from that it seems mesh attachments go immediately to where they ought to be attached, rather than orbiting the avatar for 30 seconds or so, after entering a parcel/region. I assume this indicates better sim to client communication.

The long-awaited Bakes on Mesh seem to be no nearer and EEP bugs are still to be cured so LL are not issuing these for mainstream operations yet. Vision-spheres are still not incorporated and I rather get the impression from the accompanying changelog notes that Kitty Barnett is becoming short-tempered about the issue, pointing out yet again that her interpretation of vision-spheres is done but is awaiting some greater project’s completion. Frankly I have stopped waiting for that. If you MUST have vision spheres, the best solution would be to use either Marine Kelley’s RLV or the Kokua TPV. If there are other solutions I do not know of them.

All in all FS 6.2.4 is a competent update and I found it easy to install despite the certificate issue causing my Firewall to flag up doubts about the source. As ever use the official FS website to download.

“Give me wings to Fly….”

With apologies to Les Holroyd of Barclay James Harvest.
I recently took to the air with a glider from Rene Marine and have had much enjoyment leaning to fly (and Land) it, when LL’s issues with sim crossings permitted. However I have more recently found another way to fly in SL…with wings. Now I know we can all fly in SL, but to be blunt it looks pretty naff. At a recent music show I saw a beautiful pair of Bento animated wings and decided to try them for myself. They are Avia wings from M.O.R. – Murder of Ravens and while not cheap are the best that I have seen to date.
See for yourself below.
While messing about with the wings (which by the way are low complexity and need only 3 scripts), I realised well, with a pair of wings, do you really need arms? So far as I know hexapods are not common in SL, so a little inventiveness I got them out of the way!
At almost the same time I was put on to the new Avara Hood, from Kyrah Abattoir’s KDC. Kyrah has been around SL since it pretty well started, like Marine Kelley and her creations are always well made, although not everyone will like her “Touch-Bound” scripting. Like many other things, it is an acquired taste. The Avara is very editable, so that while it may not be rigged to mesh heads, it is possible (though not easy) to get a very good fit. Judge for yourself below how the “Falcon” style works. It seemed appropriate with wings like these!

Who needs Red Bull?

Wings in “Tucked” position

Wings, Avara Hood and Insanya’s new catsuit

While SL may not be in its best condition, it is still possible to have a little fun and to be inventive, if not original. It is worth noting that the Avara automatically adapts to the open mouth state when a gag is worn, though as I say above you do have to edit it to get the best fit. Also as I said, it is not easy, you MUST read Kyrah’s extensive and easy to follow online instructions for the Hood. With the Avara it is possible to get really good results, but it is also not difficult to get into a right mess if you don’t read the notes!

The TP bug saga

I’ve posted before about this: https://ayesha001.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/so-now-its-official/ but the issue is not by any means close to a solution. There is a thread on the Server Forum that contains the most recent comments by one or two folks who “know about these things” and also a few rants from me (Yes Aishagain Resident is me, my current account in SL).

This is the place where, until there is more “official” news from LL, which I’d expect in their technology blog, but some pertinent comments have been made by those whose knowledge of the soft-and-hardware behind SL is much greater than mine: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/434761-whats-up-with-sim-crossings/ (we’re up to page 6 by now).

Now some folks still seem to think that there’s not much going on and we should “buckle up or just read a book”. It seems that a month of troubles is not significant to some! I WAS around in 2008 and I do recall the tribulations SL had back then, but I had hoped we had moved a bit beyond that sort of clueless blundering.

This is in fact quite a serious issue. It will take some concerted effort on the part of LL to fix this, but for the sake of SL’s future, fix it they must.

ETA Wednesday April 24th, 8pm BST:
By now all SL is on LL’s second attempt at a grid-wide bug-fix. So far the results are promising, but apparently only if you use Firestorm! No idea why that should be. Keep watching that thread above.

Notre Dame

I’m not going to say any more, there’s no need. Fire destroyed one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the world tonight. France and the world are in mourning.

Edit Tuesday April 16th am: Looks like the cathedral can be rebuilt. Thankfully.

So Now it’s Official…

Tonight in the SL Blog, this: https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/2524-darn-teleport-disconnects/ so now we have it from Linden Lab. Quite where this gets us heaven knows, but tonight both my partner and I had TP disconnects (only one each thankfully). Gliding was a risky business, however…my partner disconnected once and I had a classic partial unsit: I was dumped at a region edge by the plane and my camera continued with the glider, uncontrolled, to the far side of that region whereupon my camera snapped back to me and the plane was returned to my partner.
Such fun!

ETA 9th April at 8pm BST: And of course it is now on the Grid Status Page so they are acknowledging it to anyone that has the sense to read that. To the confused I posted the original at about 1:30am this morning!

ETA2 20th April 12:45am BST: After a massive round of restarts LL have rolled out what they think is a “partial” fix for the teleport disconnection bug that has been plaguing SL for over a fortnight now. Sim crossings (which I am told are handled in the same way as teleports, though I find that hard to believe) remain something over as lottery though I managed several crossings while gliding during the day today (19th) without mishap. I did have a TP disconnect on one attempt (though two further attempts to the same location were successful). So the jury is most definitely still out on this issue. There has been some comment on Inara Pey’s Blog (https://modemworld.me/2019/04/19/linux-jessie-update-a-cause-of-sl-tp-issues/) about the simulator Linux update that “may” have a role in this issue, so there’s plenty of meat on this bone to chew over.

ETA 3 5pm BST April 20th: Looking at the recent comments in the Server Forum, this problem is NOT solved, indeed for some it appears to be worse! But as with it all through this period, it isn’t the same for us all. Perhaps if your connection is strong it happens less. But then why? LL have their work cut out to prevent serious loss of users.

Dammit, I’ve been logged out again!

That curse has probably been uttered more times in the post couple of weeks than in five years in SL. There have been various reasons/explanations given for this issue, but none of them have any real evidence base.

The fact that this issue began when EEP code was first introduced to the RC channel regions and increased enormously when EEP code was introduced to Main Server regions, on the face of it points very compellingly to that code change. However there is substantial evidence that some users are not crashing on region borders, and still others using a workaround of de-rendering sky (look in your Debug settings or the Advanced menu) are still being logged out on crossings or TPs.
Now it MAY be that the TP logout caused by slow or incomplete handoff of the account/agent between one region and another is unrelated to the recently seen border-crossing phenomenon; that is unclear, but today LL apparently rolled out a potential “fix” for at least some of these issues. Following two weeks of silence on the topic from LL this comes as no real surprise. In situations like this LL rarely give explanations for issues until they have fully identified and solved them to their satisfaction. That is frustrating but entirely understandable, if you see matters from LL’s viewpoint. The well watched LL JIRA: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-226577 gives a flavour of what’s been happening and also the Server forum thread:https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/434761-whats-up-with-sim-crossings/ is a good guide to current thinking within SL.

For now we must wait and see what transpires. We need this issue to “go away” for the sake of those who sail and fly in SL, a substantial portion of SL’s userbase.

Devon is out of the Doldrums!

Today, the Glad Tidings were that the awful spiky lag that had been bedevilling the Devon Dream region, home to the Darkwing Stables and Family has been cured. The miscreant was a dreadfully scripted “Heat Board” which was part of the new Ponyball system, established last year.
The issue was identified by none other than Miss Ralna Payne, whose tireless efforts on behalf of the Pony League and Ponies from Space, have been so vital in the continuation of Ponysport and Ponyplay generally in SL. She had observed such issues in another Stable/Region and had tracked down the culprit there also.
That it should have turned out to be a rogue set of scripts in the controversial revised Ponyball Field is unfortunate and will likely do little to further the cause of that competition until the issue is fixed. No doubt that it WILL be fixed, but such a shame that Ponyball should have been the source of such a problem at all.

Now it would be nice to think that the “Child Agent” issue that is paralysing WPG and other places would be as promptly and easily solved, but I’m not that naïve. We live in hope.