New "slplugin.exe" randomly plays media from another parcel/sim?

[Kouki Elska]

I'm noticing a weird issue that's been happening since some time last year, using the latest updated Firestorm viewers.

I will be on my parcel either on my parcel in the Mainland sim, or my rented home on a private sim (parcel not owned by me), and while watching my own TV (same media URL set to a prim on both parcels), there's a completely random chance at seemingly completely random timing where some weird music or sound plays on a new instance of slplugin.exe... on my mainland parcel, it was a j-pop song, the same song that would play each time it happened. On my rented home at the private sim, it's always playing some kind of kids show about humpty dumpty (one friend confirmed the same happening to him)... I could be sitting in the same parcel doing absolutely nothing but watching the TV I set, and it will randomly play after several hours of just being there. It's so bizarre.

Where even is this music coming from? Is it somehow grabbing the media from a neighbor's parcel or a random sim's parcel? Is it some form of advertisement by LL? While I have my preferences set to make media volume adjust based on camera distance from the media source (like my TV)... these weird "popup" media I keep hearing are not affected by my camera distance at all.

Has anyone else gotten this issue?

I'm not really sure what this is... but we could never figure out what is really causing it. There's nothing out of place on the land information's sound or media, and no foreign objects on the parcel that should cause it.

So far, the only solution I could find to deal with it is, whenever it pops up, going into the Volume Mixer of my PC, and muting the new offending slplugin.exe... but I'd like to know if there's a permanent solution, because it always starts up really loud and scares me.

Edited January 21, 2018 by Kouki Elska

[Whirly Fizzle]

10 hours ago, Kouki Elska said:

but I can try to maybe alt cam around to see if I could find the source possibly...

You'll be able to find the source.
When you hear the media playing, in the top right of the viewer, hover over the media play/pause button & click the "More" button"

You'll see a list of all nearby media sources.

Selecting a media source (left click) & clicking on the + button will zoom your camera onto the media source.

You can also stop delect media playing by clicking the stop button to the left of the + button.

[Qie Niangao]

You seem to be describing standard behavior for "Shared Media" (aka Media-on-a-Prim or MoaP), which can play multiple streams at once without constraint by parcel boundaries. That's in contrast to Parcel Media which supports just one active stream per parcel (or sometimes one per parcel per avatar).

What's a little odd, though, is that these "are not affected by my camera distance at all" which I don't recall being the case for your settings. In my experience, these things will start playing at seemingly random times corresponding to when the stream-associated object is rezzed in my viewer -- very much a function of where I'm looking, but also varying in volume as I move my cam around trying to locate the streamer.

Does it help to change your preferences so media doesn't auto-play, and instead select the one(s) you want from the list of active streams?

[Whirly Fizzle]

It could be this bug: BUG-40937 - Shared media a great distance away (different region even) sometimes plays at maximum volume when entering a region or moving camera slightly.

If you are using the latest 5.0.7 Firestorm release, this bug should be fixed though.

[Kouki Elska]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

You seem to be describing standard behavior for "Shared Media" (aka Media-on-a-Prim or MoaP), which can play multiple streams at once without constraint by parcel boundaries. That's in contrast to Parcel Media which supports just one active stream per parcel (or sometimes one per parcel per avatar).

What's a little odd, though, is that these "are not affected by my camera distance at all" which I don't recall being the case for your settings. In my experience, these things will start playing at seemingly random times corresponding to when the stream-associated object is rezzed in my viewer -- very much a function of where I'm looking, but also varying in volume as I move my cam around trying to locate the streamer.

Does it help to change your preferences so media doesn't auto-play, and instead select the one(s) you want from the list of active streams?

Ah, so could it be caused by MoaP within neighboring parcels? That would explain a lot. Though I wish SL did restrain it to the containing parcel. @_@

I can try turning off auto-play, though I liked it personally, I can live without it. I'll try to keep the option to allow scripts to play it though, but I'll report back if it continues with the normal auto-play turned off.

Thanks for the reply and sharing your advice.

[Kouki Elska]

8 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

It could be this bug: BUG-40937 - Shared media a great distance away (different region even) sometimes plays at maximum volume when entering a region or moving camera slightly.

If you are using the latest 5.0.7 Firestorm release, this bug should be fixed though.

It does sound similar, except it also randomly plays when just sitting there for hours not moving/touching SL... but I can try to maybe alt cam around to see if I could find the source possibly...

[ChinRey]

11 hours ago, Kouki Elska said:

Ah, so could it be caused by MoaP within neighboring parcels? That would explain a lot. Though I wish SL did restrain it to the containing parcel. @_@

There was a JIRA suggesting they should do that when they updated the MOAP alst year (or was it two years ago). LL didn't see the point though.

[Kouki Elska]

2 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

You'll be able to find the source.
When you hear the media playing, in the top right of the viewer, hover over the media play/pause button & click the "More" button"

You'll see a list of all nearby media sources.

Selecting a media source (left click) & clicking on the + button will zoom your camera onto the media source.

You can also stop delect media playing by clicking the stop button to the left of the + button.

Ohh, thanks a ton! This should definitely be handy in identifying what it is. I actually never thought of doing this before.