User:Andrew Linden/Office Hours/2008 07 31

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Transcript of Andrew Linden's office hours:

[17:06] Sindy Tsure: there he is
[17:06] Bau Ur: I just IMmedhim and got a "User not online" thing.
[17:06] Marianne McCann: I spoke way way too soon
[17:06] Sindy Tsure: heya andrew
[17:07] Marianne McCann giggles
[17:07] Bau Ur: :)
[17:07] Bau Ur: Hello!
[17:07] Sindy Tsure: oh.. he's got himself one of them new cloud avatars.. :)
[17:07] Marianne McCann: Don't we all?
[17:07] Sindy Tsure: lol.. true enough
[17:07] Bau Ur: I love the cloud avatar. i want to be able to wear it at will. Unfortuantely, unlike Rught, it is not in the Library.
[17:08] Marianne McCann: Bau - I believe I saw somethign on... Torley's Twitter? On where it can be gotten inworld
[17:08] Bau Ur: Indeed?????
[17:08] Andrew Linden: hello, sorry I'm late -- had to reinstall SL to get in
[17:08] Bau Ur: Thank you for that information!!
[17:08] Marianne McCann: Gladly!
[17:08] Marianne McCann: Sorry to hear it, Andrew
[17:08] Bau Ur: Heheh..Andrew..."Happens to the best of us".
[17:09] Sindy Tsure: looks like they moved the landing point.. people are showing up upstairs
[17:09] Bau Ur: Andrew thething I want to ask you about is the so-called "new " giant prims and what, in truth and in fact, is the cost of giant prims to the server resources.
[17:09] Andrew Linden: "new" gian prims?
[17:09] Bau Ur: And is it likely to change with upcoming changes to the physics engine.
[17:09] Marianne McCann: Hey Arawn
[17:09] Sindy Tsure: back at like 1.21 or so, the creation of new megaprims got enabled..
[17:10] Arawn Spitteler: Hey, Marianne, inviting Andrew to your fireworks show?
[17:10] Bau Ur: There are some prims made with better (closer) bounding boxes than the Gene Replacement ones.
[17:10] Andrew Linden: Ah yes. They are just megaprims, but with more variety.'
[17:10] Sindy Tsure nods
[17:10] Marianne McCann: I should! Just listening and learning, mostly
[17:10] Sindy Tsure: heya arawn
[17:10] Andrew Linden: I dunno what kind of performance problem they'll cause, probably none to little.
[17:10] Andrew Linden: used carefully megaprims are not a problem
[17:10] Arawn Spitteler suspects Andrew needs learn to just enjoy this world, rather than creating it all the time.
[17:11] Andrew Linden: however they can cause problems is used with evil or ignorant intent.
[17:11] Bau Ur: yes, that is what I struggle to understand,. What does nad does not constitute careful use.
[17:11] Sindy Tsure: there's been pretty long (and, of course, drawn out) discussion on that in the forums..
[17:11] Marianne McCann: I suspect it's a bit of a judgement call, no?
[17:11] Bau Ur: For example, they appear, on the map, to overhang island boundaries when, according to coordinates. they do not, and I have seen lag shoot up when they are positioned in this way.
[17:11] Arawn Spitteler: I don't see how a physical megaprim would be more trouble than any other physical of that sise.
[17:12] Bau Ur: And I hear that collision calculations for megaprims are highly server resource-consuming.
[17:12] Andrew Linden: Let us list the problems with megaprims, shall we?
[17:12] Sindy Tsure: bounding box covers a bit more volume...
[17:12] Marianne McCann: Ya, been seeen some internittant issues with a coupel buildings on the Bay City Imagionario/Docklands border. Not sure on them, though.
[17:13] Andrew Linden: (1) They exacerbate the collisionless prim across region boundaries problem.
[17:13] Sindy Tsure suspects Andrew has a notecard ready with the list of problems that megaprims cause
[17:13] Andrew Linden: (2) They exacerate the prim-enchroachment problem between parcel neighbors
[17:13] Andrew Linden: (3) The mess up the mini and world map
[17:13] Bau Ur: When megaprims first come into view, I experience a moment of slowed performance, followed by an abrupt sort of "scoot" ahead in the direction I was moving. I htinkmaybe this has been misinterpretted by some people as a physics problem?i think it is a viewer problem.
[17:14] Andrew Linden: (4) They are not handled well in some approximations made by the SL client render pipeline
[17:14] Sofia Westwick: mega prims have long been cause of island issues
[17:14] Bau Ur: This especially happens if the edge of a megaprim is in sight.
[17:14] Sofia Westwick: i mean performance issues in sims
[17:14] Bau Ur: hmm, I would like to really understand that "not handled well" thing.
[17:14] Andrew Linden: (5) Physical megaprims may cause lag issues -- there is theory to support this but I haven't actually experimented
[17:15] Bau Ur: I am listing all this by the way...may I record in my notes what everyone says about this? Facts are so precious.
[17:15] Sindy Tsure: "collisionless prim across region boundaries problem"?
[17:15] Andrew Linden: Static megaprims may also cause some performance issues in some special cases... but they always require a large number of dynamic objects nearby.
[17:15] Gaius Goodliffe: Bau: Sure. It should be noted that the objects just appearing slowdown happens with normal large builds, too.
[17:15] Sofia Westwick: It would be nice if the normal prim size was raised to 20 X 20 as thats the biggest prims need to be, and the rest of the mega prms removed form the grid
[17:16] Bau Ur: JEEZ YES physical megprims in motion cause lag...I can take you to an example later if you wish.
[17:16] Gaius Goodliffe: In fact, a number of the issues Andrew mentions are also issues with large linksets.
[17:16] Sindy Tsure: that'd break a lot of existing builds, sofia.. :(
[17:16] Bau Ur: hmm Giaus, nope, it is definitely differeent and worse and distinctive, with megaprims, for me.
[17:16] Andrew Linden: Sindy, think of it as the prim-encroachment problem, but across region boundaries, with the added problem that the objects don't collide outside the region in which they actually reside.
[17:16] Andrew Linden: Bau, is this client-side lag or server-side lag?
[17:16] Sofia Westwick: yes but people have been wared since the first mega prim was put in place that some day it may be gone
[17:17] Andrew Linden: Sofia, megaprims are not going away. We can't remove them.
[17:17] Sindy Tsure: if the center of a prim is in sim A but parts of it end up in sim B, does sim B even know it or is it all client-side?
[17:17] Bau Ur: Well I think there is some of each, don't you? Because the server has to process info to feed it to the client, and if the client can't handle it, the server has to keep trying to send it, right?
[17:17] Sindy Tsure: ...and sim A side
[17:17] Andrew Linden: Region B doesn't know anything about the megaprims in A.
[17:17] Sindy Tsure nods. ty
[17:17] Gaius Goodliffe: Bau: I think what you're talking about, with it coming into view, would have to be entirely client side.
[17:18] Sofia Westwick: well Andrew thats not what i've been told be other peopel who work at LL
[17:18] Andrew Linden: No Bau, I don't think it works that way -- the server doesn't know what the client can't handle.
[17:18] Bau Ur: Well, if there are four regions on a server, and one region is eating a lot of calculation power, doesn't it slow performance in other regions on the same server?
[17:18] Gaius Goodliffe: Otherwise, it would be *worse* with linksets, not better. (Server has to send *more* info for a linkset than a megaprim)
[17:18] Bau Ur: Okay, sorry, I am pulling thetopics out of order. I'll hush and listen now :)
[17:18] Andrew Linden: I know Sofia... it is a long story, and that is my jaded take on it today.
[17:18] Marianne McCann grins
[17:19] Sindy Tsure asks a different way.. if i'm in region A and can objects in region B, am I getting region B objects from region B or is A passing them to me?
[17:19] Arawn Spitteler: A megaprim attachment vehicle, could save a lot of prims, which would otherwise have to be broght into the server, when the wearer rides the real vehicle in.
[17:19] Sindy Tsure: *and can see
[17:19] Andrew Linden: Yes, typically four simulators share a single host machine, however each simulator has its own CPU
[17:20] Andrew Linden: that said... the sims share file i/o and memory
[17:20] Andrew Linden: as well as a single network port
[17:20] Arawn Spitteler: I think it's the Asset server Communication, that causes one sime to lag another.
[17:20] Andrew Linden: so there is some impact from one simulator on others, although it is minimal... unless they all need lots of memory
[17:21] Gaius Goodliffe: Bandwidth might be another shared resource that one sim could starve the other three of, no?
[17:21] Andrew Linden: one memory hog typically won't hurt four lightweight regions... but two or mor memory hogs may slow each other down.
[17:21] Sindy Tsure: where the sims are on the grid doesn't have much to do with which hosts they're on, though - neighbors are rarely on the same physical box, i think
[17:21] Bau Ur: And their need for memory is related to total number of priims and textures and avatars on site, yes?
[17:21] Sindy Tsure: oops!
[17:21] Bau Ur: As well as scriipting etcetera.
[17:22] Andrew Linden: yes Bau, however the scripts and number of avatars appear to be the heaviest load on simulator memory.
[17:22] Bau Ur: Are scripted giant prims and more burdensome than scripted regular prims?
[17:23] Sindy Tsure bets no
[17:23] Andrew Linden: I think in most cases a megaprim is not a significant load on the system.
[17:23] Sindy Tsure: ...since havok4?
[17:23] Marianne McCann: P_rob'ly one of those "in moderation" things
[17:23] Andrew Linden: There are only a few configurations I can think of where a megaprim would have significant effect on the simulator performance.
[17:24] Bau Ur: When a megaprim moves...that's a lot of movement...and it occurs with two different sets of calculations. One set is what you see on the coordinate system and the other set is whatever weird thing is going on that makes giant prim boundaries appear differently on the map.
[17:24] Gaius Goodliffe: You can usually reduce the load on the sim by using megaprims. You can reduce the number of prims, and sometimes the number of scripts as well, by using them.
[17:24] Arawn Spitteler: Except the prim rights get used right up
[17:25] Andrew Linden: To the physics engine the megaprim is just like any other object... however if there are a bunch of other objects nearby that are physical then the giant prim will cause ALL or nearly all (depends on how near they are) to "wake up"
[17:25] Andrew Linden: and that can cause the physics engine to slow down
[17:25] Arawn Spitteler: You have to cam in close, on the railing of my megaprim bridge, but it provides a lot of seatting
[17:25] Andrew Linden: however, one giant prim moving in an empty region costs the same as a tiny prim moving int a giant region... well almost
[17:25] Andrew Linden: turns out the heightfield collisions are more expensive for a giant prim
[17:25] Bau Ur: And I suspect the field of influence of the mega prim is that big field represented on the map, rather than the apparent contours of the giant prim..becuase of the bounding box thing.
[17:26] Andrew Linden: but I suspect that cost is hard to actually measure
[17:26] Gaius Goodliffe: Of course, the one prim to one prim comparison is rarely valid. In reality, you should compare the one megaprim to an equivalently sized linkset.
[17:26] Bau Ur: Who is in charge of measuirng it?
[17:26] Sindy Tsure: sounds like bau just volunteered to measure it
[17:27] Bau Ur: And assessing whether, or in what cases, giant prims are conservers or overconsumers of resources?
[17:27] Andrew Linden: yeah... the objects have an Axis Aligned Bounding Box (AABB) that is used in the physics engine's "simulation island" computations... when figuring out which objects need to be "woken up"
[17:27] Arawn Spitteler wonders how Hitme did that.
[17:27] Bau Ur: I wish I could. i have no idea how this stuff works. i'm a botanist.
[17:27] Andrew Linden: The physics engine will "deactivate" an object that has stopped moving... and will then save CPU cycles by not trying to simulate it
[17:27] Arawn Spitteler: Comparison of spacial responses could enlighten your Botany
[17:28] Andrew Linden: so by "woken up" i mean the object gets moved to the "active list" and is then processed in the simulation step
[17:28] Marianne McCann: A lot of the physical issues were "cured" with H4 no? I reem to recall some issues in the past with bouiding and such on the giant spheres were helped along
[17:28] Marianne McCann: bounding*
[17:28] Sindy Tsure nods!
[17:28] Andrew Linden: so... if you have a region full of dynamic objects but they are all at rest... the physics engine will happily spin along quite fast
[17:28] Bau Ur: Right, so the physics engine adds it to the list of things it has to keep checking for collisions, right?
[17:28] Andrew Linden: however, if you thing bump all of the dynamic objects the physics engine will slow down
[17:28] Hitme Nitely: SL needs an physics engine like There.com's one that is like Real life
[17:28] Andrew Linden: so... a megaprim makes it easier to bump a lot of spread out dynamic objects all at once
[17:29] Marianne McCann: Good point
[17:29] Marianne McCann: Great spread - more things to hit
[17:29] Sindy Tsure: that was always a griefer too, mari.. drop some physical megaprims on an H1 sim and crash it :(
[17:29] Sindy Tsure: *tool
[17:29] Andrew Linden: in that particular scenario I would expect a megaprim to cause disproportionate load... but ti requires all the other objects in order to cause a problem.
[17:29] Bau Ur: Andrew, does bumping include things such as an avatar walking on a giant prim?
[17:29] Marianne McCann: Ya, i recall it well :-/
[17:29] Andrew Linden: yes Bau, avatars are dynamic objects in the physics engine.
[17:30] Gaius Goodliffe: Andrew: Does a 40m megaprim wake up any more than a 40m linkset?
[17:30] Bau Ur: If a megaprim is being used as a road, for example, is that going to burden the physics engine more than if it were paved with a lot of regular prims?
[17:30] Andrew Linden: So a crowd of avatars also contribute to bumping other objects into the "active list"
[17:30] Hitme Nitely: if you ever played there.com and drive your cars in it you would see its very life like physics, and if you run over someone they go sliding and bouncing across the ground
[17:30] Arawn Spitteler's thinking dance floor.
[17:30] Bau Ur: yeah, exactly, Arwn
[17:31] Andrew Linden: Bau, the megaprim road would only impact things if it had lots of dynamic objects on it, or nearby.
[17:31] Bau Ur: or an entire sandbox paved with a giant prim, with 24 builders woeking on it.
[17:31] Arawn Spitteler: Dance Floor, single object of many prims or one megaprim
[17:31] Andrew Linden: but... 40 dynamic objects shouldn't be too high.
[17:31] Andrew Linden: the cost of avatars is more than normal objects
[17:31] Marianne McCann: Is there any appreciable difference, between say a s0x20 mega, or four 10x10s doing the same job
[17:31] Sindy Tsure: but if all those builders have uberhuds and scanners and xcite bits and all, the cost of the megaprim isn't that bad compared to the cost of scripts
[17:31] Andrew Linden: so most of the lag is just from computing what information to stream to each client.
[17:31] Marianne McCann: 20x20*
[17:32] Hitme Nitely: its kind of sad the emtire meeting is about mega prims when it should be about stuff that will better the gird, like a life like physics engine
[17:32] Andrew Linden: right Sindy, I would expect scanners, listeners, and collision callbacks to cause more lag than the megaprim
[17:32] Bau Ur: I am sorry. It is however an topic that consumes a lot of discussion in builder's groups, and leads to quarrels and it is something that apparently none of us can assess without help forom experts on the physics engine.
[17:32] Marianne McCann: Heck, Hitme. neither that or Megas are my issue. I've been more worrried about the light borkage since WL
[17:33] Andrew Linden: I haven't spoken about megaprims in these hours in a while.
[17:33] Arawn Spitteler: That brings me to another point, that I'd like to kick about. I've a project, that would like its own physics engine, a Wind Tunnel, and other sims should exist with newtonian physics.
[17:33] Andrew Linden: Feels like the good old times.
[17:33] Sindy Tsure: lol
[17:33] Bau Ur: :)
[17:33] Sindy Tsure would be happy to change the subject..
[17:33] Bau Ur: I am grateful and whatever I learn here I will try to share accurately with many others.
[17:33] Arawn Spitteler: Light borkage would be a Viewer Side Issue, wouldn't it?
[17:33] Sindy Tsure sneaks in a question about what a "cascading prim return" is
[17:34] Hitme Nitely: some time if you can go drive a car in there.com and then think of how great SL would be if it had that kind of physics
[17:34] Andrew Linden: Arawn, OpenSim has already been branching out in that regard -- someone hacked a N-body gravitational simulation into OpenSim
[17:34] Marianne McCann: Ya, Arawn, I believe so
[17:34] Andrew Linden doesn't know what a "cascading prim return" is.
[17:34] Marianne McCann: The reduction from six lights to two viewable
[17:34] Arawn Spitteler: Can I go Therre.com, without adding an account?
[17:34] Sindy Tsure: really?? only 2 now??
[17:34] Marianne McCann: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-6116
[17:34] Sindy Tsure had not noticed that
[17:35] Arawn Spitteler: That would be seious borkage; has it been Jiraed?
[17:35] Hitme Nitely: no you would have to make an account but its free and would be owrth it to get an idea of what sl could be like if it had that kind of engine
[17:35] Marianne McCann: I was doing some experiements with Robin Sojourner on that last night, as I'm running an Invidia and she;s on an ATI. Sae issue
[17:35] Marianne McCann: same*
[17:35] Andrew Linden: Alas, I don't know anything about the "light borkage". This is the first I've heard about it.
[17:35] Marianne McCann: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-6116 details is pretty well
[17:35] Bau Ur: I'm on a MA. i think it is even worse on our monitors.
[17:36] Marianne McCann: I'm on a late model iMac
[17:36] Andrew Linden: I'll make sure Runitai Linden hears about that bug.
[17:36] Bau Ur: afk but will come back and check chat. Excuse me please.
[17:36] Marianne McCann: Wonderful. I suspect he'd want to know, given some of his shadow experiments
[17:37] Andrew Linden: Runitai works mostly on the graphics system. He may have been involved in changes with the recent lights, or he may know how to fix it.
[17:37] Marianne McCann: Color your lights, Sindy... also I suggest setting them in a row and walking past them
[17:38] Draw Bridge worshipsArawn Spitteler
[17:38] Andrew Linden: Hrm... yeah now that you mention it... Arwan's avatar looks different in this client... the horns show up fullbright, but no local light.
[17:38] Marianne McCann nods
[17:38] Arawn Spitteler: No Local? I'm sure I set them light
[17:39] Andrew Linden: It could be the settings on my client. I had logged in here earlier today on a custom built client and noticed that this little orb on the center of the table was glowing nicely
[17:39] Marianne McCann nods
[17:39] Andrew Linden: but now It is looking pretty dim
[17:40] Marianne McCann: Im sure Runitai might have some ideas
[17:40] Andrew Linden: The MONO project has been merged back into our trunk codebase today --> some sort of milestone.
[17:40] Arawn Spitteler: I haven't tested this phenomenon, under my old 1.19.0, but the floating text is amiss, in that drawbridge.
[17:40] Marianne McCann: Excellent
[17:40] Gaius Goodliffe: So, the next major update is going to include Mono?
[17:41] Sindy Tsure w00ts!
[17:41] Andrew Linden: The next simulator update will have MONO yes.
[17:41] Sindy Tsure: < 2 weeks!
[17:41] Andrew Linden: I think it is scheduled for the first half of August.
[17:41] Marianne McCann: What's being eyed down the line?
[17:41] Arawn Spitteler: Do others see the floating text, at the bottom of my prim?
[17:41] Andrew Linden: Marrianne, could you rephrase that question about "down the line"?
[17:41] Sindy Tsure: i do, arawn
[17:42] Arawn Spitteler: First Half of August, when all the release managers but CG will be on vacation?
[17:42] Marianne McCann: I do, Arawn
[17:42] Andrew Linden: interesting... the local lights actually work for the avatar "imposters" feature
[17:42] Arawn Spitteler: I'm still on 1.20.RC, but it's not right behaviour for a viewer on floating text.
[17:42] Andrew Linden: that is, when I move the camera far back I see the lights correctly
[17:42] Marianne McCann: Andrew - post mono, what are some of the things considered as coming up? I'm sure some of the inter-sim transport is hot right now, for one
[17:42] Andrew Linden: er... on the avatars only
[17:43] Sindy Tsure: vehicle region crossings!
[17:43] Andrew Linden: I don't see any floating text Arawn
[17:43] Gaius Goodliffe: So, once Mono is out, we can talk about LSL enhancements again, right? Like llUnSitTarget? :D
[17:43] Arawn Spitteler: It's towards the bottom, where it shouldn't be, yellow, "I'm closed tight."
[17:43] Marianne McCann: I'd just love to see little things like hugs work again
[17:43] Marianne McCann winks
[17:43] Sindy Tsure noticed the text first when seeing the prim from the back
[17:43] Andrew Linden: Yes post MONO we'll be able to start adding scripting features that have been on hold.
[17:44] Sindy Tsure: switch/case??
[17:44] Sindy Tsure begs
[17:44] Arawn Spitteler: Switch/Case might wait on C#, or implemented if someone cares about LSL
[17:44] Andrew Linden: The inter-sim stuff is mostly to do with the login/authentication stuff... not a huge amount of simulator development in that project.
[17:44] Sindy Tsure thinks lsl would be fine with a few more features
[17:45] Andrew Linden: Babbage Linden has a lot of ideas on what he wants to do post-MONO
[17:45] Sindy Tsure: sadly, he has inconvenient office hours :(
[17:45] Gaius Goodliffe: I'm more interested in improved library calls than new language features. It's not the best language but it's fine.
[17:45] Andrew Linden: From my perspective... I don't see a lot of the pending projects... I'm mostly on maintenance these days.
[17:46] Andrew Linden: However... there is some sort of LLHTTPRequest project underway
[17:46] Andrew Linden: I don't know all the details, but I think it will be the first MONO-related feature add
[17:46] Andrew Linden: and it might be going out with the MONO release, in fact
[17:46] Gaius Goodliffe: Can a put a plug in for an old bug that I got hit with again this week? I would really, really like to see SVC-34 fixed one of these days. It's a major nusiance while testing vehicles, and a major source of grief during dogfighting contests and such.
[17:47] Sindy Tsure guesses that's somebody right-clicking to halt a vehicle?
[17:47] Andrew Linden: lets see... SVC-34...
[17:47] Gaius Goodliffe nods.
[17:47] Andrew Linden: oh, that bug
[17:47] Sindy Tsure: as a land owner, i have reservations about them removing that...
[17:47] Arawn Spitteler: Right Click Detection at least, in competitions.
[17:48] Arawn Spitteler: Could it be added to bump reports?
[17:48] Andrew Linden: yeah, we need to overahaul the "selection code"
[17:48] Gaius Goodliffe: Most people don't even know they're disrupting you when they do it. Reporting them isn't going to help.
[17:48] Andrew Linden: That is a good candidate for something I'd like to work on... sigh
[17:49] Sindy Tsure: and vehicles interacting with ban lines!!
[17:49] Arawn Spitteler: Access Line Visibility is an issue, with vehicles, but a matter of round to-its
[17:49] Andrew Linden: One of the projects gearing up is one that will be focusing on simulator performance
[17:50] Andrew Linden: right now they're working on instrumenting the simulator with better timing calls so we can figure out where the time is being spent, in more detail
[17:50] Andrew Linden: and then they'll start trying to optimize and cleanup the hot spots.
[17:50] Marianne McCann: excellent
[17:51] Arawn Spitteler imagines an algorhythm for beating the lottery, that only takes resources from the busiest sims.
[17:51] Sindy Tsure: profiling can be expensive.. are you going to enable extra profiling on the beta grid?
[17:51] Andrew Linden: However the timing for that project to bear fruit is post 1.25. MONO is 1.24 and 1.25 will be the first patch, along with all the stuff that has been piling up behind MONO
[17:51] Andrew Linden: The profiling can be enabled/disabled real-time
[17:52] Andrew Linden: And it won't be all that expensive. The resolution of the profiling won't go down to every function call.
[17:52] Marianne McCann: One that seems to be sticking around, although it has gotten a lot better, is avatar collisions, as in hugs and stuff. Still some bounding issues though, versus H1
[17:52] Sindy Tsure nods
[17:52] Marianne McCann: The stuff in http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1191
[17:52] Sindy Tsure: twitchy hugs :(
[17:52] Marianne McCann: "swim hugs," ya
[17:52] Arawn Spitteler: Humpy Hugs
[17:52] Sindy Tsure: lol
[17:52] Andrew Linden: I've got some hopeful fixes for bouncing hugging avatars -- part of some maintenance stuff that should be in 1.25
[17:52] Gaius Goodliffe: Hoppity Hugging. :)
[17:53] Marianne McCann: Exacellent. It can be pretty pronounced with, well, a small avvie like me
[17:53] Marianne McCann: Excellent*
[17:53] Andrew Linden: Honestly, I haven't been able to reproduce the bouncing hugging avatars, but I think I know what was going on anyway, so I submitted a theoretical fix.
[17:53] Sindy Tsure asked earlier but i think it got lost in the discussion.. before you have to go, can you tell me what a "cascading prim return" is? and maybe what might cause such a thing?
[17:54] Andrew Linden: Yes, should be more pronounced for mismatched avatar sizes
[17:54] Marianne McCann: If you have a moment before the end, I can probably reproduce it for you
[17:54] Arawn Spitteler: I recall Andrew didn't know.
[17:54] Andrew Linden: so a small hugging a tall
[17:54] Sindy Tsure: oh.. missed that answer.. :o
[17:54] Marianne McCann: Drives avatar bounding nuts
[17:54] Sindy Tsure has an old hugger that does it, if you want it, andrew. i've gotten a new one and don't use it any more
[17:55] Andrew Linden: Sindy, I don't know what you mean by "cascading prim return". Could you elaborate on that?
[17:55] Sindy Tsure: every parcel owner-owned object in a mainland sim got returned or deleted at the same time.. ~15 different owners
[17:55] Sindy Tsure was told "There was a parcel change that precipitated a cascading prim return." and was wondering what that meant
[17:56] Andrew Linden: Did that happen on the 1.23.4 simulator update this week?
[17:56] Sindy Tsure: no.. this was several months ago.. maybe even pre-h4
[17:56] Andrew Linden: What region? At what time?
[17:57] Andrew Linden: Oh... hrm. There are a few ways to return a bunch of objects like that
[17:57] Andrew Linden: one way would be to edit the terrain to be very high
[17:57] Andrew Linden: however, if it was done across multiple parcels... I would doubt that is how it was done
[17:57] Sindy Tsure: things on group-deeded land that were set to the group didn't get returned
[17:57] Andrew Linden: also, the damage to the terrain should be pretty obvious
[17:58] Sindy Tsure: but _everybody_ without group land had all of their stuff returned/deleted.. only litter remained
[17:58] Andrew Linden: meh... I can't think of how it happened. But this is the first I've heard of it
[17:58] Andrew Linden: and if it were happening a lot I'm pretty sure someone would have told me about it.
[17:58] Sindy Tsure: everything in the "owned by parcel owner" part of About Land
[17:58] Sindy Tsure: ok.. to be honest, it sorta sounded made up.. :)
[17:59] Arawn Spitteler: Some work at home Linden Liason came up with something to say, maybe.
[17:59] Andrew Linden: Huh... you know, some events like that turn out to be accidental deletes
[17:59] Sindy Tsure drops this one, lest she start ranting about that support ticket :)
[17:59] Sindy Tsure: again
[17:59] Andrew Linden: people return objects and press the wrong buttons... happens all the time
[18:00] Sindy Tsure: this was 15 different parcel owners.. all at the same time
[18:00] Sindy Tsure: mainland
[18:00] Gaius Goodliffe: always be careful in the estate tools :)
[18:00] Andrew Linden: ok let's drop it. If a rash of mysterious autoreturns start happening I can certainly investigate.
[18:00] Sindy Tsure: :) ty!
[18:00] Arawn Spitteler: In Mainland, the estate owner is Linden Labs, but Lindens do have learning exoeriences
[18:01] Andrew Linden: BTW, for such an event...if it is a month old there is no way for me to investigate. We don't keep any logs out that far.
[18:01] Sindy Tsure: i don't think there's a button to do what we saw, arawn.. i sorta thought it was something like a reclaim-abandoned-land script run amok
[18:01] Sindy Tsure nods. i talked to a couple conceirge people near when it happened and jack the next week
[18:02] Andrew Linden: Right, returning owner's stuff across parcels is tough... although...
[18:02] Arawn Spitteler: /might have bled from another sim on the same server
[18:02] Gaius Goodliffe: Abandoned land is automatically assigned to the Gov. It doesn't automatically set auto-return, though.
[18:02] Andrew Linden: if the region were using the "parcel prim bonus" feature, and if someone accidentally set it too low, then I would expect a bunch of autoreturns to happen
[18:02] Andrew Linden: all at once
[18:02] Andrew Linden: that is, some parcels would decide that they were too full
[18:02] Sindy Tsure: this is old mainland, tho..
[18:02] Gaius Goodliffe: Some mainland regions do have prim bonues.
[18:03] Gaius Goodliffe: *bonuses
[18:03] Andrew Linden: some old mainland regions use the parcel prim bonus factor. In fact, the feature was designed for the Luna region
[18:03] Sindy Tsure: this is boring old mainland :)
[18:03] Sindy Tsure: not OLD mainalnd.. just old mainland..
[18:03] Andrew Linden: Ok, what is the region name?
[18:03] Sindy Tsure: Digeut
[18:04] Sindy Tsure: i was just wondering if you'd heard that term before
[18:04] Marianne McCann: On the Korean continent
[18:04] Sindy Tsure nods
[18:04] Andrew Linden: Well, I'll see if it is using it... it will take me a few minutes.
[18:04] Sindy Tsure: bonus? nope.. i'm 99% sure it isn't
[18:04] Sindy Tsure owns about 1/2 of it
[18:05] Sindy Tsure: er.. 1/3rd anyway
[18:05] Gaius Goodliffe: Oh by Solbim! I used to have a friend in Solbim, before he bought Straylight...
[18:05] Sindy Tsure: :)
[18:06] Marianne McCann: Is that when Prim Bonus was created? I assumed it came in around then, because of Nova Albium. Interesting
[18:06] Marianne McCann is a history nut
[18:06] Andrew Linden: woops... tried to cat a gzipped file on cygwin -- computer started beeping to death
[18:06] Gaius Goodliffe: lol
[18:06] Arawn Spitteler: Sounds like a new button might have pushed over the button a land manageer was expecting.
[18:06] Sindy Tsure: print the zip! print the zip!
[18:07] Andrew Linden: I'm pretty sure the prim bonus factor was so that Luna could be done.
[18:07] Gaius Goodliffe: Cygwin -- making windows almost bearable...
[18:07] Andrew Linden: indeed, cygwin is the only thing that makes windows bearable for me
[18:07] Sindy Tsure grumbles about godless hethans
[18:08] Gaius Goodliffe: I prefer an OS X desktop, but when I must use Windows, Cygwin is the first thing I install...
[18:08] Andrew Linden: nope, Digeut does not use the prim parcel bonus. it is set to 1.0
[18:08] Arawn Spitteler: What's Cygwin?
[18:08] Sindy Tsure: *heathens
[18:08] Andrew Linden: cygwin is a toolset that provides a unix-like environment on Windows
[18:09] Gaius Goodliffe: Cygwin is a POSIX environment for WIndows.
[18:09] Sindy Tsure: monopoly is another word for 'standard' you know.. :P
[18:09] Andrew Linden: ah... I see the hour is up
[18:09] Gaius Goodliffe: Comes with a good X server too.
[18:09] Andrew Linden: any last minute issues or topics?
[18:09] Sindy Tsure: not unless you want to see my new hat
[18:09] Andrew Linden: I haven't set up the X server ye3t.
[18:09] Marianne McCann: Here... lemme give you a hug
[18:09] Gaius Goodliffe: I need it -- must have my spiffy X shells. :)
[18:09] Arawn Spitteler: I have to set up for my class.
[18:10] Arawn Spitteler: Oh, a Marianne Hug is precious.
[18:10] Marianne McCann giggles
[18:10] Andrew Linden: Alright, thanks for coming.
[18:10] Marianne McCann: Well, I'm trying to swim on it
[18:10] Marianne McCann: /kneelhug Andrew
[18:10] Child HelloMultiTool 5 function (high5, kneelhug, eskimo, etc): Marianne would like give you a kneelhug. Say [Yes] to accept.
[18:10] Marianne gives Andrew a big kneelhug.
[18:10] boita Kohime: hi all
[18:10] Sindy Tsure: hiya
[18:11] Marianne McCann: The first time oin weeks this has worked
[18:11] Marianne McCann giggles
[18:11] Gaius Goodliffe: Andrew is immune to bugs. :)
[18:11] Arawn Spitteler: Hi, boTA
[18:11] Sindy Tsure: he's cheating with god mode!
[18:11] Marianne McCann: Ah well
[18:11] Gaius Goodliffe: They don't show up while he's watching, because they know he'll squish them.
[18:11] Andrew Linden: It may require a non-flat surface
[18:11] Arawn Spitteler: /huG BOI
[18:11] Marianne McCann: Worked perfectly bad with Sidewinder
[18:11] Andrew Linden: that is, a floor that isn't totally level
[18:11] Marianne McCann nods
[18:11] Marianne McCann: Have a good night, Andrew!
[18:11] Arawn gives boita a big hug.
[18:12] Bau Ur: Back
[18:12] Bau Ur: Thank you Andrew!
[18:12] Andrew Linden: ok, try again
[18:12] Marianne McCann: /kneelhug Andrew
[18:12] Child HelloMultiTool 5 function (high5, kneelhug, eskimo, etc): Marianne would like give you a kneelhug. Say [Yes] to accept.
[18:12] Marianne gives Andrew a big kneelhug.
[18:12] Marianne McCann: nope... even offsetting
[18:12] Marianne McCann: weird
[18:12] Marianne McCann: I mean... good
[18:13] Andrew Linden: Are you sure it is still broken in 1.23.4?
[18:13] Gaius Goodliffe: The bugs know when to hide. :)
[18:13] Sindy Tsure: andrew kneeling is the same height as mari.. does that cancel out the 'happens when people are different heights' bit?
[18:13] Marianne McCann: Happened to me last night and this morning
[18:13] Gaius Goodliffe: I saw the bug as recently as two days ago.
[18:13] Marianne McCann: Naw, the kneelhug has been a trouble since H4
[18:13] Andrew Linden: Yeah, could be the old "bug vanishes when the developer looks over your shoulder" phenomena
[18:13] Marianne McCann: We now know... Andrew is magical
[18:13] Bau Ur: HAHAAH
[18:13] Sindy Tsure: heisenbug!
[18:13] Gaius Goodliffe nods.