What does SLPlugin do?

[arabellajones]

It doesn't seem to be in every TPV, so I find it hard to believe it's essential, but what does it do? I suppose it might be a quick and easy way of taking advantage of multi-core processors, but I see Firestorm loading four instances before I ever log-in, and using huge amounts of RAM, more than Firestorm itself is ever reported as using.

This is with 64-bit Firestorm. I can see how it would allow more RAM to be used under 32-bit Windows, but that's not what I am using. I'm guessing that a lot of the RAM allocated is as pointers to the same blocks of read-only code and the 7GB total for four instances of SLPlugin is misleading, but, as I said, other TPVs don't even use it.

[Whirly Fizzle]

As far as I know all up to date TPVs will use slplugin. Slplugin was added when webkit was added to the viewers back in the days of Snowglobe & it's still used in current viewers that use CEF & VLC for media.
slplugin is needed to view any media content in the viewer & the slplugin processes are launched & culled by the viewer as needed. 
There will be one slplugin process for each media instance the viewer is currently using - so for example you will have one slplugin launched to load the login screen image (which is essentially just a web page), another launched  when you open a web profile, another launched when you open web search, another launched if you open the destination guide in the viewer & parcel media or MOAP objects inworld will each have their own slplugin instance.

The max number os slplugin process the viewer can run at any one time is governed by the debug setting PluginInstancesTotal.
The default value is 8.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Whirly Fizzle

[arabellajones]

So I start 64-bit Firestorm. Without even clicking on anything, four instances of SLPlugin have started. On your description it only needs one. for the login screen image. All the other examples you give appear to depend on an active connection to Second Life.

So what is Firestorm connecting to that you don't appear to know about, and why?

Oh, current software. Try Cool VL Viewer. There are regular updates, and it doesn't use SLPlugin. It also made busy places at SL14B usable for me. Fewer features than Firestorm, but it does seem to release RAM before the heat-death of the universe.

[arabellajones]

Ah, I was mistaken about Cool VL Viewer

It did open a single SLplugin instance when the viewer started. This was promptly culled when I logged in, vanishing within seconds of my login location becoming visible on my screen. That may be why I missed the use.

This is still different from Firestorm's behaviour, with multiple instances at viewer start, and no culling.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Hmm the slplugin processes should be culled in Firestorm when they are no longer needed.  I just tested & the slplugins are being culled for me on Firestorm 5.0.7 64bit on a Windows 10 system.
Possibly you have some old zombie slplugin processes stuck from previous sessions.  When logged out of the viewer, make sure there are no slplugin processes still running & kill the process if there are.

While Firestorm is sitting at the login screen, I have 2 slplugin processes running.
One is to load the login screen image from http://phoenixviewer.com/app/loginV3/

Not sure what the other one is for but it seems to be some media using the CEF plugin.
It's normal anyway, the LL viewer also launches 2 slplugins at the login screen. 

I know Cool VL Viewer doesn't use VLC for media, I think it uses GStreamer instead, which may affect how & when  the slplugin processes are launched.
I'm not sure if Cool uses web profiles either, which need an slplugin instance.

 

[arabellajones]

I'm using Linux Mint 18.1

No zombie processes. It's one of the things I checked for.

I don't expect you to know the details of how Linux works, but I have four SLPlugin instances from Firestorm appearing before login, while you see two under Windows, and I am starting to worry about what they're doing.

Well, I can check that. There are a plethora of GNU tools to track this sort of stuff, though it looks as though I shall have to write a shell script. I joined SL after the Emerald business, but some people were still warning newcomers to be careful about the Phoenix project.

Summary: Firestorm starts more SLplugin instances than other browsers, and is slow to cull them. When Firestorm starts off using more RAM than any other viewer I know of, this huge of extra RAM doesn't look good.

 

[Whirly Fizzle]

If you don't trust the Phoenix-Firestorm project, why are you using their viewer? lol

I'll ask one of our Linux support to take a look at this & see if it's normal on Linux to launch 4 slplugin at the login screen.
Did you compare with the LL Linux viewer?  I'm not sure if this will give an accurate comparison though because the LL Linux viewer has media failure - known bug https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-10403

Maybe compare with the Alchemy 64bit Linux build, I don't think Kokua has a 64bit build yet.

[arabellajones]

Why am I using Firestorm?

Because the LL Linux viewer doesn't work at all, and because I never had reason before to think Firestorm was behaving differently in the number of SLPlugin instances used.

 

 

"Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out!"