Congratulate me: I am running scripts without my knowledge.

[VioletScrivener]

Like I say on the tin, I'm running scripts on my avatar, but I'm durned if I know how.

I'm also a SL-newbie and something of a moron when it comes to technology. But I do understand that the more my avatar wears, the harder it becomes for others to see her properly. (The Free Dove area has "scales" to measure an av's "weight." I've been making liberal use of them.) - Aside from that, I got nothin'. I'd appreciate any help. I have questions:

1. WHAT could these mysterious scripts be?
2. WHERE can I find them?
3. HOW can I turn them off? SHOULD I turn them off? (Do they stay turned off forever?)

Thank you very much.

- Violet

[Rolig Loon]

It's almost impossible to not have some scripts on you, somewhere.  There are scripts in your AO, in any clothing that has a size or texture-changing option, in hair, ....   Scripts are what make objects adaptable and that let you choose how you look and move.  You seem to have run across a silly tool that scolds you for wearing too many scripted things, under the mistaken impression that scripts are harmful to you and the region that you are in.  If that seems to bother people around you, you may choose to do something about it or just leave.  If you are curious about where all those scripts are, open the World >> About Land >> General menu and click the tab at the bottom that reports Script Info.  In the window that opens, click the tab that says Avatar to see what you are wearing and where it is.  I don't suggest removing any of it unless you know what it is and why it's there.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Rolig Loon

[Fionalein]

Those scales measure more than one thing, one is your avatar render weight or complexity - the more stuff you wear the more difficult it will become for others to see you - that's true but scripts are unrelated. About the scripts: Each Simulator has limited hardware resources, your script memory and script time take up some of those (processor cycles to process your scripts and RAM to load them) If those grow out of hand the whole sim will start to lag.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Fionalein

[Rolig Loon]

3 hours ago, Fionalein said:

About the scripts: Each Simulator has limited hardware resources, your script memory and script time talke up some of those (processor cycles to process your scripts and RAM to load them) If those grow out of hand the whole sim will start to lag.

This is true only in a very limited sense, however.  The servers prioritize the way that they allocate time by giving scripts the lowest priority. Therefore, other activity in the region can cause scripts to lag, not the other way around. As long as there is spare time available, scripts will continue to run properly.  When total demands on server time are so great that there is no spare time left, scripts will start to stall and you will find that operations that depend on those scripts get laggy.  Under those conditions, yes, scripts are contributing to the lag you experience, but only because other activity -- large numbers of avatars, vehicles and other physical objects, etc. -- are already putting a huge load on the servers.  The bottom line is that it's wise to avoid using server time with unnecessary scripts, but to look elsewhere for most things causing lag around you.

[Lindal Kidd]

To add a smidgen to Fiona and Rolig's advice...

Lots of attachments come equipped with re-size scripts, or scripts that do other things like change the texture.  When you click them, you get a blue box with a set of buttons on them to re-size the item, in various directions or all at once.  Most things these days have pretty efficient re-size scripts, but when they first came into use, a re-size script was placed into every prim of the object.  With a hairstyle or a necklace containing a couple of hundred prims, this could add up to a lot of scripts.  Such objects also have an option in their menu that says "Delete".  Clicking this will delete the scripts.  However, once you do that, the object can no longer be controlled by the menu...so before you click the Delete button, you should always make sure that you have made a safety copy of the item and stored it in your inventory.

The upside to deleting the scripts in an item, of course, is that it reduces the script load you're placing on the servers.

One other point that should be obvious, but often isn't...scripts can ONLY exist in an object.  A script in your inventory can't do anything.  It must be placed into a prim, and then that prim must be rezzed in world or worn on your person in order for the script to do anything.  If you are getting things like script error messages or warnings, there is an object somewhere in the vicinity that contains the script.

[VioletScrivener]

Thank you both very much. It's a relief to know that I haven't committed some sort of newbie crime. I'll certainly take care before I start nixing things.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Scrips are in your socks, your underwear, your hair, your glasses... Tons of them are inside your mesh body and bento head. They take their toll when you teleport away from one sim and enter the next. Upon entering, everyone in the sim will experience a lag spike, which is worse, the more scripts you wear. This is what makes events like monthly sales horribly slow and laggy, because people teleport in and out constantly.

Most scripts on people are totally unnecesary. They sit there idly (but still cause that sim entry lag spike), because they are only there to listen to a HUD to change their appearance. Some of these HUDs provide the means to have the scripts removed, but I doubt whether anyone uses that option at all.

The worst are scripts from old freebies that many people still seem to use. These freebies are usually from before the llLinkSomething era, when a script had to be inserted into every child prim in order for them to change appearance. Freebie hair and freebie shoes can easily have hundreds of scripts without anyone noticing, except for the horrendous lagging when the carrier enters a sim.

AO's are quite OK. Most of them are quite script-efficient, but if you really want to be low-script: use Firestorm's built-in AO. It uses zero scripts. Everything, changing animations, managing settings, is done on the user's computer (client-side).

In summary: it's good to be aware of the amount of scripts you are wearing. The fewer the better. Overall, the average of a 100 scripts could be reduced to under 10. Imagine how much faster SL would be ifd everyone would adhere to minimizing their script count.

Edited August 6, 2018 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Fionalein]

29 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

In summary: it's good to be aware of the amount of scripts you are wearing. The fewer the better. Overall, the average of a 100 scripts could be reduced to under 10. Imagine how much faster SL would be ifd everyone would adhere to minimizing their script count.

Could easily be done if folks would do their outfits by copying their mesh bodies and cloth and then descript all that stuff... But "no rez" scripts (yeah another totally useless script...) make even descripting simple stuff like dresses an exercise in advanced script wrangling (can be done but I will not tell you folks as it carries abuse potential)

Edited August 6, 2018 by Fionalein

[Rolig Loon]

5 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Scrips are in your socks, your underwear, your hair, your glasses... Tons of them are inside your mesh body and bento head. They take their toll when you teleport away from one sim and enter the next. Upon entering, everyone in the sim will experience a lag spike, which is worse, the more scripts you wear. This is what makes events like monthly sales horribly slow and laggy, because people teleport in and out constantly.

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration.  Unless you wear mesh socks and underwear, there's nothing to put a script into.  Aside from that, the lag spike that occurs when a new avatar enters the region is due only in very small part to scripts the avatar may be carrying.  The spike is almost entirely due to the avatar herself.  Every time you move from one region to another, the servers in both regions need to take time to transfer information about who you are, where you are, how fast you are moving, and what you are wearing, and they need to transfer control over various "capabilities," which include your access to databases that control your inventory, your avatar description, your friends and group lists, and a host of other things. That all takes time.  Once you are in the region, the servers still have to keep track of where you are, what you are doing, and what communications you may be part of.  It all adds up so that in the end, avatars are the single greatest source of lag in SL.  The scripts in things that they carry are only a very small part of the load.

5 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Most scripts on people are totally unnecesary.

That's definitely true. There's no good reason to keep a color change script in your hair when you're hardly ever going to use it. That's especially true if it's old-style hair that has a color change script in every blinkin' piece of hair. It's much smarter to keep the scripts in a backup copy and then remove the scripts from the hair that you wear every day.  You can either use the menu option that most good scripters build into the hair itself or you can use a scrubber script (many good free ones are available).  The reason for getting rid of those unnecessary scripts is not any spike when you enter a region, though.  It's that if a region is already laggy, servers compensate first by reducing the amount of time that's available for running scripts. Important scripts that make objects move and control communication and lighting start to fail.  That sort of failure is pretty common in laggy regions, but all the extra, unnecessary scripts in people's hair and clothes can make it worse.  When the servers are scrambling to find free time, scripts lag each other.  Important scripts start to crawl along because of all the silly, unnecessary ones.  That's the reason to optimize the number of scripts you carry around.

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Unless you wear mesh socks and underwear, there's nothing to put a script into. 

Applies to prim clothing parts also..? I have many old clothes which have prim parts (non-mesh).

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Applies to prim clothing parts also..? I have many old clothes which have prim parts (non-mesh).

Yes, prim or mesh (or sculpty, if you can find old scuplty epaulets for your field marshal uniform).  Just not socks and underwear, which are almost always system assets -- textures painted on your body.  You can't put scripts in them. 

[Lindal Kidd]

"Scrips are in your socks, your underwear, your hair, your glasses... Tons of them are inside your mesh body and bento head."

/me suddenly starts to itch everywhere!

[Fionalein]

6 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

"Scrips are in your socks, your underwear, your hair, your glasses... Tons of them are inside your mesh body and bento head."

/me suddenly starts to itch everywhere!

It is just a marketing ploy, Lindal, soon @Arduenn Schwartzman will release his "Scrip Exterminator 2000" spray 

Edited August 6, 2018 by Fionalein

[Nalates Urriah]

I think what the problem is, is well described. But, what does one do about it?

So, as to what can be done about it...

In the marketplace are free script... scales... counters. A free one is here. Third-Party viewers also have a counter in the avatar's right-click menu. These will help you know what you are wearing.

Then there is the matter of how hard are the scripts working and which are the memory hogs. To see that info you need to right-click the ground, not the floor, select About Land and then Script Info then Avatar. You'll see a list of scripts with memory use, name, and attachment point. You Do Not have to be in the land where you click the ground, any ground will do... within the region you are in.

Next is the matter of eliminating scripts from things. Most of the tutorials I know of were made in 2012 and 2013. I wrote mine here. Nothing relevant has changed since then. You'll find it isn't hard to remove scripts from Mod-OK items. I explain how in the article. The No-Mod items are the pain. Generally, if there is no option to do so provided by the maker then they cannot be removed. That makes it important to check the demo before buying. Check whether Mod-OK and for an option to remove scripts if No-Mod.

The No-Mod thing has a twist or two. Unfortunately, most clothes and shoes are truely No-Mod. So, nothing works. But, some things are are Mod-OK with No-Mod scripts inside. The result is the overall status of the item is No-Mod. But, you can open (rez then edit) the item and drag the scripts into inventory effectively removing the scripts from the item.

Turning scripts off... technically that is setting a script to 'Not running'. But, you have to have Mod-rights to do that and most scripts are provided as No-Mod. Fortunately, most things with scripts are idle. They sit quietly and listen. Decently made scripts listen on quite channels (there are like 2 million channels for listening), so do almost no work except when the HUD is talking to them. It isn't an issue.

The problem of concern is the memory they require. They use server resources. They complicate teleports (regions crossing of any kind). So, less memory use is better.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

On 8/6/2018 at 5:06 PM, Rolig Loon said:

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration.

I'm afraid it's not.

On 8/6/2018 at 5:06 PM, Rolig Loon said:

Unless you wear mesh socks and underwear, there's nothing to put a script into.

No. You can, and creators DO puts scripts in every wearable, except for skin layers, clothing layers and tattoo layers that no one uses anymore.

On 8/6/2018 at 5:06 PM, Rolig Loon said:

the lag spike that occurs when a new avatar enters the region is due only in very small part to scripts the avatar may be carrying.

No, due to absolutely a very large part to the scripts the avatar is carrying.

Sorry to contradict you like this, but I know from first hand. I have an air combat sim in which script-heavy people teleporting in are just about the only cause for avatars and vehicles rubberbanding whereas low-script people don't. Avatar streaming cost is a very small factor. And it's not the sim itself either. Come check it out yourself. The SLURL is in my profile.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[Klytyna]

12 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

No, due to absolutely a very large part to the scripts the avatar is carrying.

Sorry to contradict you like this, but I know from first hand.

Script startups are a massive cause of sim-entry-lagspike.

I've seen some asshat wearing 600 plus scripts, with a normal script cpu time of 1200 ms plus, enter a sim, during their first 30 seconds or so on the sim, the script cpu time for their avatar rose to over 9999 ms, how much more i cant't say, my meter only went to 9999...

You could FEEL the whole sim lurch as they TP'd in.

People get all paranoid about 50-100 scripts and a measly 100-200 ms cpu time, that's hardly anything, it's when you get those real monsters with cpu times over 500, and script counts over 200. That's when you start to worry.

On 06 August 2018 at 7:22 PM, Nalates Urriah said:

The problem of concern is the memory they require. They use server resources. They complicate teleports (regions crossing of any kind). So, less memory use is better.

Memory usage is hard to gauge these days... As many scripts are compiled in MONO now, and so automatically report they are using 64 kb per script even when they are not. In addition, MONO scripts share memory so if there are 10 people all wearing the same mesh body and hud, compiled in MONO, you are NOT looking at 10 times the claimed memory usage at all for the sim.

Better to worry about script html usage (theres a much smaller limit on the availability of those, talking to external databases is BAD, for example some breedables) and cpu time, as that's what contributes most to sim script time.