There is a new Release Candidate available, and a shiny new format for our Downloads page to get it!

A new Second Life 1.20 (RC6) Release Candidate viewer is now available for download from the Test Viewers page (this is the bottom section of the page, not the primary installer in orange at the top of page).

Reminder: Release Candidate viewers are optional viewers that contain the latest round of bug fixes in the upcoming next version of the Second Life viewer. If you have been using the 1.20 (RC5), you will be required to update that installation to this latest version (RC6). But the Release Candidate is always an optional version that you may choose not to use — or better– to have installed side by side on your computer with the main viewer offered on our Downloads page or http://get.secondlife.com.

In 1.20 (RC6) Release Candidate, we have isolated and resolved the SmartHeap library error message that occurs on exiting Second Life. We’ve also patched the problem of property lines showing through avatars, objects and the ground. Here are the latest notes:

Changes:
* Changed the descriptor in Group Information window > Notices tab to “14 days” instead of 30
* Removed menu option Advanced > Character > Show Collision Plane
* Property lines are are now hidden behind objects, avatars, terrain, and water by default. When in Build mode, if ‘Tools > Show Hidden Selection’ is enabled, property lines will become visible through objects, etc.

Fixes:
* Fixed: VWR-6389: Runtime Library error after quitting Second Life
* Fixed: VWR-4580: Property lines are visible through avatar, objects and through ground
* Fixed: VWR-6896: Crash when selecting Advanced > Rendering > Info Displays > Lights (and other Info Displays)
* Fixed: VWR-7042: Incorrect tooltip for “Use built-in web browser” option
* Fixed: the spinners are broken in the snapshot UI when upload a snapshot
* Fixed: Create tool’s last 11 shapes are not the proper height (”sphere” looks like an “egg”)
* Fixed: Typographical error in Transfer permissions alert dialog
* Fixed: Crash selecting Edit > Land Owners with Basic Shaders disabled
* Fixed: crash on LLFloaterWorldMap::buildLandmarkIDLists
* Fixed: 3dConnexion device does not default to enabled with 1.20 RC 5
* Fixed: Settings in the Joystick Configuration window reset to defaults on each launch when a SpaceNavigator is connected

Localization Fixes:
* Fixed: XML resizing to repair truncated text in 1.20 localizations

Known Issues:

* As the first release of improved Joystick and 3D input device support, there are minor known issues with camera behavior and/or button-mapping behavior when using the 3dxconnexion SpaceNavigator in a combination of “Flycam” and Build modes.
* IMPORTANT NOTE: There is a known issue in the 1.20 Release Candidate on Macs using Apple’s USB Mighty Mouse and a 3dxconnexion SpaceNavigator. The Mighty Mouse will be erroneously detected as a joystick where the primary mouse button will toggle “Flycam” with unusual behavior. Therefore the support for the 3dxconnexion SpaceNavigator in Second Life does not yet extend to Macs using a USB Mighty Mouse.

We expect this to be the final Release Candidate in the 1.20 viewer series, barring any Showstoppers that you may find. Please of course continue to report any new issues large or small in the Issue Tracker, and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.20 Release Candidate”.

Thanks to all of you who participate in the RC cycle — posting reproducible steps and system environments, responding to questions, and clarifying and linking — your help to improve the Second Life viewer is greatly appreciated!

SO! We have a small little experimental feature we want you to know about…

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Yes, that’s right, we’re on the 5th iteration of the 1.20 Release Candidate viewer! We increased the frequency of RC releases in an effort to aggressively resolve crashes and reduce the overall viewer crash rate. Steve Linden outlined these plans here in the Viewer Crash Hunters project.

The good news is we’ve been able to find and fix a number of crashes, but the down side is that this has been a rather rocky road for the 1.20 Release Candidate. (It is only in these later iterations that we are approaching a viewer ready to be the real “candidate.”) We will work on refining the release process and do better to keep you all informed about where we are and where we’re headed. We really value your feedback and appreciate your time finding and reporting issues back to us.

Please remember that Release Candidate viewers contain the latest round of bug fixes and/or soon-to-be-released new features and can be installed side by side with the primary viewer. Please try the RC viewers only if you want to participate in the bug reporting process and identify issues before they become the default viewer.

So on to RC5! (more…)

As mentioned in the update to my previous post, we found and fixed the cause of the crash on editing appearance (VWR-6792), and fixed a few other potential crashers as well. Second Life 1.20 RC4 has spent the day in QA and is now available for download from the test software page.

Reminder: Release Candidate viewers are optional updates that contain the latest round of bug fixes and/or soon-to-be-released new features. Please try the RC viewers only if you want to participate in the bug reporting process and identify issues before they become the default viewer. You can have both a Release Candidate and the primary viewer installed side by side on your computer, so if issues are encountered when testing the RC viewer you can switch back to the production viewer.

Fixes:

• VWR-6286: changed the method LLControlGroup::loadFromFile to only load values of settings that are persistent
• VWR-6792: Instant Crash on Editing Appearance
• Fixed: Crash in LLFloaterIMPanel when starting conference
• Fixed: Crash on LLVOVolume::sculpt - newview/llvovolume.cpp

Changes:

• llLoadURL now opens web pages in external browser by default

Known issue:

• On MacBook Air notebooks, only the High Terrain Texture ground texture displays. The other 3 Terrain Textures in the Region/Estate dialog’s Ground Textures tab do not display.

Please continue to report any new issues in the Issue Tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.20 Release Candidate“.

Thanks for your patience and help in finding/fixing issues!

[UPDATE: 2008-04-24 9:27am PDT] Thanks for the quick feedback on 1.20 RC3.  We’ve found and fixed the cause of the crash on editing appearance (VWR-6792) and will be making 1.20 RC4 available later today.  We’ve removed RC3 from the download page.  Please use 1.20 RC2 or the 1.19.1 primary download until RC4 is available.

Hi again everyone.

We’re back to weekly Release Candidate releases. We increased the frequency of Release Candidate viewers last week in an attempt to gather more info/feedback on the Nvidia issues that have been reported (VWR-6343). Second Life 1.20 RC3 is now available and includes a batch of fixes to issues reported in the previous 1.20 release candidates (RC0, RC1 and RC2) and new code that we believe should address the Nvidia issues. Please visit the test software page to download the Second Life 1.20 (RC3) Release Candidate viewer.

Fixes: (more…)

Resolved 5:55 p.m. PDT The database seems to be happy again, consider this the all-clear for transactions. Thank you for your patience.

Update 5:39 p.m. PDT We’re still working on resolving these issues and will continue to keep you updated as the situation progresses. In the mean time we suggest that you avoid making any important transactions until these issues are resolved.

Update 4:40 p.m. PDT We have noticed some problems with teleporting and inventory as well. We’ve investigated the cause of these problems and we’re expecting service to return to normal shortly.

As we have blogged in prior posts, during peak hours we sometimes see a delay in services. We have been working to update our database clusters and are still working to add servers. At the moment some in world services are unavailable including L$ Transactions. Please refrain from conducting transactions at this time until we give an all clear.

Quick Status

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.

What Has Changed In This Version?

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Happy Friday everyone!

A new 1.20 Release Candidate Viewer (RC2) is now available with fixes based on issues reported in RC0 and RC1. Please visit the test software page to download the Second Life 1.20 (RC2) Release Candidate viewer.

The Linux viewer crashes on startup found in RC1 have been fixed and the Korean, Japanese and German viewer crashes found in RC1 have also been addressed. Source code will be available for download soon.

We’re still working on a complete fix for the Mighty Mouse issue, but in the mean time, if you are experiencing issues, try this:

• From the Edit menu > select Preferences > choose the Input & Camera tab
• Click on ‘Joystick Setup’ button
• Un-check the checkbox ‘Enable Joystick’

One known issue for Mac users, but with a workaround:

• Release Notes launch every time 1.20 RC2 is started on Mac
• To stop this from happening, launch RC2, dismiss the Release Notes, and quit Second Life without logging in
• Release Notes will not appear on the next start of the RC2 viewer

As a reminder: Release Candidate viewers are optional updates that contain the latest round of bug fixes and/or soon-to-be-released new features. Please download the Second Life 1.20 (RC2) Release Candidate viewer only if you’re interested in helping us test these optional viewers.

Changes:

• Record Movie to Disk option missing intentionally removed (VWR-6315)
• Color changes to improve text contrast in title bar, scroll bar and menu highlight
• Updated disabled button art
• Updated login/teleport progress screen art and colors
• Set the top-level ‘opaque’ parameter to false in menu_viewer.xml

Fixes:

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[UPDATE 2008-04-15, 5:16 pm PDT] Linux viewer crashes fixed!: We’ve fixed the issues that were causing the Linux 1.20 RC1 viewer to crash. Please download the new Linux viewer here. Thanks for your patience!

[UPDATE 2008-04-16, 1:02 pm PDT] Korean, Japanese and German viewer crashes: We have investigated a problem that causes this Release Candidate (1.20 RC1) to crash on startup for foreign languages; this will be fixed in the next Release Candidate (1.20 RC2). To revert to the English version of 1.20 RC1, you can delete the malformed file in the language folder .\ko, \ja, or .\de as appropriate:
..\skins\xui\de\panel_speaker_controls.xml
..\skins\xui\ja\panel_speaker_controls.xml
..\skins\xui\ko\panel_speaker_controls.xml

[UPDATE 2008-04-15, 3:47 pm PDT] Linux viewer crashes: We’re investigating a problem that causes the Linux 1.20 RC1 to crash on startup. Linux users are encouraged not to upgrade at this time. In order to prevent the viewer from forcing you to download an update, open gridargs.dat in a text editor and edit the text that reads:

secondlife --channel "Second Life Release Candidate"

so that it reads:

secondlife --channel "skipRC1"

We’ll post an update here when a more suitable Linux release candidate exists.

A new 1.20 Release Candidate Viewer is now available with some important fixes and changes.

If you’re interested in helping us test these optional viewers, please visit the test software page to download the Second Life 1.20 (RC1) Release Candidate viewer. Source code will be available for download soon.

Changes:

• Reminder that the Tools menu now displays in the main menu when editing/creating objects. Click on the Build button or right click and select Create. Existing short cuts (CTL + 1, 2, 3) all still work and will also activate the Tools menu.
• Disabled Avatar Imposters to address suspected cause of increased crashes on nVidia cards
• Allowed disabling of Joystick devices globally and selectively for avatar/build/flycam
• Backed out changes to put the Friends dropdown back on the world map (VWR-6243).

Fixes:

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[Completed 12:07 p.m. PDT] Our system engineers have completed work on the Central database cluster and services have resumed.

We are about to undergo a 30 minute downtime in order to work on our Central database cluster. All services including transactions, logins and in world services will be affected.