Avatars present on a region but cannot see or hear them in local chat

[Tymus Tenk]

For a month at least I sometimes will tp or fly into one of my regions (all on the Second Life Main Server channel) ... have an Avatar standing next to me trying to contact me in local chat and they are not visible nor can I hear them in local chat (they can reach me via IM)  :matte-motes-agape:   If I relog, I can then see and 'hear' them fine.  Others have mentioned that they have experienced this as well, yet in searching the forums/blogs, I've been unable to find anything on it. Has anyone else experienced this lately?  I do use the latest Firestorm viewer, but I'm guessing this is something that happened with one of the server deploys in the last month or two? 

[Ayesha Askham]

Tymus

I was beginning to think that I was the only avatar that saw this issue!  I raised it on the Firestorm JIRA as BUG-2820, and Whirly Fizzle pointed me to this thread.  I've been seeing this bug mainly on Magnum sims for about the same length of time as you, but last night I saw it on a LeTigre server too.

Others in my friends list have seen the issue transiently on Main Server at our home sim.  The only difference as far as I can see I that avatars appear in my scripted scanner and also in radar (nearby people) and I DO hear them in local chat.

Now to my mind the only explanation for this is that the information is sent from the server, but is not processed by the viewer's render pathway.  I gather that some "tweaks" in the render code were made in recent releases of the Linden Viewer, and the next iteration of Firestorm will also have them.  whether this will cure this bug or not I cannot say, but Minuet Voir, using a Development Firestorm viewer did not have the issue.

Apparently not everyone has this bug, and it is not consistence or reproducible, so I can add no other comment save that you are by no means the only one seeing this issue!:smileyfrustrated:

 

ETA on June 28th:

It seems that the code that was incorporated into Firestorm 4.4.1 did NOT cure the issue for me, and since Minuet Voir (who did not see the issue) was using the development viewer that became 4.4.1 (so far as I know), I am left with the baffling conclusion that this is another of SL's weird avatar-specific and unexplainable bugs!

[Tymus Tenk]

Hi Ayesha.... I see  their names on Firestorm's Radar as well ... although when I cam in they do appear to be underwater in the corner of the sim with other avatars (that's been happening for ages.. :matte-motes-oh-rly:) but not with this latest twist.

Yesterday I ended up rezzing a donation kiosk on a couple dancing.  He donated then IM'd me asking if I could move it a bit  ... lol   I have found that the only solution for me is to relog when I crossing into another region .  Thanks for letting me know I'm still not alone in this

[Ayesha Askham]

D'oh!

Sorry folks BUG-2820 is on the LL JIRA, not the Firestorm one!  So, of course no-one else apart from the chosen few (of which Whirly is one, being the Firestorm JIRA guru) can see it.

 

I really do not know why Linden Lab still call the JIRA a "public" JIRA, since apart from the reporting facility it is patently NOT public. :smileymad:

 

ETA: Still very surprised that there are not dozens of folk saying "Oh yes I have that issue too"...what makes us so special?:smileysurprised:

 

2nd ETA June 28th:

See my edit post above; Firestorm 4.4.1 did not cure my issue.

[Erik Verity]

I haven't noticed any serious problems with this issue, but since I found this thread, I thought I would let you add my name to the list that has experienced this. It has happened only about 3 or 4 times so far, but I know of no way to reproduce it. Ironically, the person I could not see was the same avatar every time - one even on my friends list. I could only hear him on voice - he was completely invisible, and NOT even on my radar screen. I am not sure about text chat since he almost never uses it. It is always resolved by a restart, however, there is another fix that worked two times at HIS suggestion: if he interacted with an object; when he sat, he suddenly appeared both visibly and on radar.

[Ayesha Askham]

@Erik

Yes, if an avatar sits on an object or otherwise links with it the server sends the avatar's positional data to all other viewers within draw distance.  Thus the previously invisible avatar is then rendered normally by the viewer.

This phenomenon is irreproducible but does appear to be particular to specific avatars for a given third party, so it seems likely that it is a caching error caused in that viewer by changes made to the way simulator data is sent by the server made in the Interest List changes.

One must hope that the latest upgrades to the viewer code eliminate this issue and that it is not worsened when SSAB is rolled out in July.

 

ETA 28th June:

See edits on my two earlier posts. :smileysad:

[StJoris]

Same problem here... My radar says the people (who are using a poseball) are where they are supposed to be, but on the mini-map and in my viewer they show in the southwest corner of the sim (sometimes as many as 8 avatars). I never had this problem before ; it started with the latest viewer (4.4.2).

[Nova Convair]

That happened to me ONCE. I was using all my upload bandwidth (which will affect the downloading too) in a background task at that time.

Needed to limit the background task and relog. Besides of that this never happened to me in all the years in SL.

Things like that are obviously network issues (packets lost or delayed too much in my example). If you have that all the time it's either on your end or your isp.

[Paul Hexem]

This is happening to too many people to be exclusively on the user end. I've seen numerous JIRAs mentioned, plus confirmed it with other in world. There's definitely some data getting lost between the viewer and region, the trick is figuring out where the problem is.

[Nova Convair]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

This is happening to too many people to be exclusively on the user end. I've seen numerous JIRAs mentioned, plus confirmed it with other in world. There's definitely some data getting lost between the viewer and region, the trick is figuring out where the problem is.

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The people that dont know what exactly the problem is so they blame SL?

SL obviously loves me since it happens never to me as long as I don't overload my network. And I am not even on the amercian continent.

[Paul Hexem]

I didn't blame SL, but it IS the only thing that all these people have in common, so it's the likely culprit. That said, there's also a chance the problem is somewhere between SL and all these people.

There's been speculation that the problem is in the way Firestorm handles radar, but the Firestorm people are blaming the regions in their JIRAs.

[Kookie Hax]

My friend has just experienced a variation on this, for the second time. In her case she can see the avatars and they can see her. She can also see what they type in chat but they can't see anything she types. IM is fine between them.

This happened with us quite some time back...at least 6 months I'd say. We are on a Magnum sim (our home). What's more, it just started happening, apparently spontaneously. And only 2 out of the 4 guests here at the time couldn't see what she wrote. In both cases those who couldn't read her text had to relog to fix it - it didn't help when she relogged herself.

It would be great to see this fixed.

 

[Paul Hexem]

I was right after all. The problem IS with SL, not the users.

 

http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-9482

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-3332

http://i.imgur.com/gTzKz2M.jpg