Firestorm Viewer Updates

 

With our focus on Veterans Day and the passing of Baron Wulfenbach/Melanippe of Themiscyra , it slipped our minds to write about Firestorm getting updated on November 11. The new version is labeled Firestorm 7.2.2. 

The new version fixes some bugs, including some that could cause you to crash. There are also some changes such as offering the Avatar Starter Pack in place of the Avatar Chooser (the old avatars should still be in the library).  One can also mark items, and outfits, as favorites. There's other details such as chat moderation,additional emojis, voice fixes, and more. 

 

For additional details, check out the Firestorm blog (here). 

 

EOTB: April 2024 Mobile Viewer Update

 

 A few days ago, Linden Lab announced it had published new versions of it's mobile viewer, for both Android and IOS. Among the improvements, avatars that used a deformer for their shape and didn't load correctly in earlier versions should show properly now.

New Android and iOS Alpha builds were published Wednesday, April 3rd.

We’ve been working hard for the last two months and are excited to share some major steps forward for the mobile client -- correctly displaying avatars and teleport improvements have been at the top of the list.

If your avatar depends on an avatar shape deformer, you should immediately notice the changes to avatar rendering! Avatars that didn’t render at all before, or didn’t look the way you intended, now render correctly.

 

Also mentioned was improved teleporting, less likely to get stuck on the loading screen, And if you're in a place with music streaming, you'll be able to use more normal controls to start or stop it.

 

Teleports are also greatly improved – no more getting stuck on a loading screen! If you’re on a parcel with streaming audio, you’ll now be able to use standard audio controls to stop/start and change the volume (tap main menu > tap the audio metadata at the bottom of the screen).  We also found and fixed some issues with the order of group chat messages.

 

Currently, the mobile viewer remains in a "private alpha" status, with access limited to Premium Plus residents, who need to apply to be on the list to use it.

 

For the blog post in full, Click Here. 

 

New Version of Radegast Viewer Available

 

It was announced in the Blind Users Support Group (and Virtual Ability) yesterday that there was a new version of the Radegast Viewer, version 2.40, available for download and use.

I am proud to release Radegast 2.40 the first major update in quite some time. Containing up-to-date LibreMetaverse, the HTTP client has been fundamentally rewritten for speed and better resource management. You may notice things like Inventory and Map Tiles downloading much faster than they have in the past. Radgast now is built against .NET Framework 4.8, the final version of .NET Framework which is the best I can do for now to keep Linux and Mac support, such as it is, until a complete UI rewrite.

 It was also announced that the website had been down for a while, partially due to the datacenter being in the Ukraine and not having power for months. But they were back.

 Radegast is a text-base viewer that has gotten a following among blind and visually-impared users of Second Life. One can read Mermaid Celine Highwater's article from 2014 about it (here). 

Bixyl Shuftan

Firestorm Viewer Undergoes Emergency Update

By Bixyl Shuftan

Users of Firestorm are having to upgrade their viewers once again, at least those whom had just upgraded to the version before. Linden Lab informed Team Firestorm the viewer was causing them problems. So the team went to work on a new update in a hurry.

It was June 26 when Firestorm released version 4.4.1 of their viewer. Jessica Lyon told the users this was a mandatory upgrade due to it's Project Sunshine and its upcoming rolling out of server-side baking, or server-side appearance as it's being called now. Five days later, The Firestorm blog had some bad news.


According to Jessica, when the viewer was being beta-tested, it was made to "enable special data logging." This sent a sizable amount of information to Linden Lab's servers and user logs, "mainly avatar appearance debugging data and usage data."  Unfortunately, this feature wasn't turned off for when the viewer was released. The "usage" information was the bigger problem as the viewers were sending this information "every 30 seconds … instead of the usual 10 minutes. The result according to Linden Lab was their statistic servers were being overwhelmed. So Team Firestorm had to act fast.

Version 4.4.1 was removed from their downloads page right away. The team then went to work on a new version of the viewer with the feature for the extra data disabled. They stated it would be available on July 2 at latest. Later in the day, work on it was finished and it was made available as Version 4.4.2. Team Firestorm then began blocking the logins of Viewer 4.4.1s in service.

Those whom had yet to upgrade from 4.4.0 do not have to upgrade right away as their viewer wasn't blocked, at least not for a few days when Linden Lab's server side appearance goes into effect.  But it was recommended they make a "clean install," that is "clearing the settings from the hard drive, along with uninstalling the application and manually wiping the cache."

Jessica accepted responsibility for the error, "we screwed up, and because of our screw-up, thousands of you are going to need to upgrade yet again, only this time with little to no notice or choice whatsoever. We acknowledge this will be, at the least, very inconvenient to most of you and on behalf of myself and the entire Firestorm Team, we extend our deepest apologies."

"… we won't make this mistake again."

Various residents across the Grid also acted. Hearing about the emergency update, they spread the news, telling friends in-avatar as well as IMs, group chats, and group notices.

Jessica stated July 9 is when Linden Labs rolls out server side appearance. For those still using Phoenix, she urged them to upgrade to Firestorm, or use another Third-Party viewer that can handle this new way avatar data is processed. Otherwise for them, Second Life may become a very colorless place.

Source: Firestorm Blog

Bixyl Shuftan