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What is "Dullahan"?


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two words, one file.   slplugin.exe

I swopped out firestorms for cool viewers and i can watch tv again. I do NOT advise others to do the same. Altho the TV works again I too still get dulahan error pop ups.  The last time this happened it took a viewer upgrade to fix. Personally I blame html5 and its innocuous but lethal https system. But hey. Brave experimenters may care to harvest various versions of slplugin and swop 'em out and see what happens but, like I say, dont do it kids. Stay safe. Stay careful. The only way is up.

Edited by rasterscan
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html5 is the hero that saved us

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5

from this crapware

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player

you said https

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

chrome

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/https-everywhere/gcbommkclmclpchllfjekcdonpmejbdp

firesfox

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/https-everywhere/

https is a good thing not a bad thing linden labs websites in a normal browser have a https url and viewers are still only http

viewer url info hub

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Barbarossa/182/60/25

http if you put in your web browser it changes automatically to https at least in mine anyways

you replaced the executable in the main folder and kept the old file system?

don't forget the llplugin folder

this folder may or may not be needed $PLUGINSDIR

i would copy both folders but that is just me

currently at this time very moment in time 7/29/2020 there is three options to update and fix browser issues in viewers download and install official viewer from linden labs or update the viewer yourself like i did or download the firestorm beta

https://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

https://www.firestormviewer.org/firestorm-6-4-5-eep-public-beta/

for the average user your probably better off just using the auto installers unless you really wanna tinker badly i kinda doubt one file was appropriate kinda baffled why firestorm is not updated and maintained the linden labs websites should have warning labels on viewers that fall behind in updates or maybe blacklist if they have to who monitors 3rd party viewer projects oversight i am sure linden labs could reach out and ask google for guidance on whether or not it is okay to still be running chromium 72 in firestorm in 7/29/2020

I had hoped for someone to chime in on how i did since the viewer cannot auto detect anything but this was all the guidance and support i got

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/434109-what-is-dullahan/?do=findComment&comment=2155933

etc

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/434109-what-is-dullahan/?do=findComment&comment=2155443

i didn't write the viewers myself i merely chopped them up and squished them together

all links and information is provided as is without warranty liability or support

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1 hour ago, iceing Braveheart said:

I had hoped for someone to chime in on how i did since the viewer cannot auto detect anything but this was all the guidance and support i got

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/434109-what-is-dullahan/?do=findComment&comment=2155933

etc

Franken Viewers have no support 💀

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18 hours ago, iceing Braveheart said:

for the average user your probably better off just using the auto installers unless you really wanna tinker badly i kinda doubt one file was appropriate kinda baffled why firestorm is not updated and maintained the linden labs websites should have warning labels on viewers that fall behind in updates or maybe blacklist if they have to who monitors 3rd party viewer projects oversight i am sure linden labs could reach out and ask google for guidance on whether or not it is okay to still be running chromium 72 in firestorm in 7/29/2020

One thing I'll never understand. Not happy with Firestorm -- use another viewer. It really is just that simple. Blacklist because you don't like our Project's release schedule? That's rather harsh and shows just how little you know about third party development, and any project in particular. 

@Oz Lindenis the Open Sourcerer of all things third party. You can explain to him how to obtain guidance from Google. Lindens always appreciate feedback. 

P.S. There's this fabulous invention called "punctuation". I recommend looking into it. 

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On 7/30/2020 at 7:43 PM, iceing Braveheart said:

 

of course that helps quite a lot if you try to call other grammar nazis it has nothing to do with grammar nazis but maybe if you want others to understand what you are trying to say it might really help otherweise I'm not sure why you are complaining about no support you tried to create some abortion of a viewer and seriously expected support for it asking to warn about or even ban viewers because they don't live up to your personal standard just lol but since you are so smart an know best why not fork any viewer project and make your own improved super up to date viewer you can hand out but don't forget to apply for the TPV directory and gather a significant share of users so you might get access to the Havok library we don't want your viewer to be some lame thing without every cool feature out there wait you said you don't care about Havok and mesh upload but what about all your users anyway if you want to continue ripping viewers apart and create frankenviewers consisting of parts of at least three different viewers do so but please stop propagating this as the thing to go every user should do unless you offer full support for that because we won't do it once they broke everything based on your instructions so now I wonder if there is anything else I can say probably not ps I hope you don't find this too difficult to read since I thought I save some time and spare all that actually useless punctuation

Edited by Ansariel Hiller
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Another user very crashy dullahan_host.exe here, did a  full "clean install" including deleting associated appdata folders.

Video stream is a youtube playlist, works in Official SL Viewer, but gives me just a gray screen with audio in Firestorm (both 32 and 64.bit).
Fixed - Problem related to "Max Texture Quality Level' not set to '0'

System info: https://pastebin.com/6cZGUxu7

And I see that this "forum" hole now has ignore. Very useful for people who haz a sad/angreh when asked to use punctuation.

Edited by Winston Chandrayaan
Snark, it's what's for dinner.
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  • 9 months later...

What an amazingly digressed thread, no surprise it's been dead for a year.   I probably should OP a new topic but I noticed some learned minds conversing here and often ancient threads attract ancient opinionators.   (Thanks for the Grammar Vid btw).

So climbing all the way up out of the mire to look back at the op question of what is Dullahan, that's answered in the links offered.

Basically it's added software, a 'headless browser'  to your viewer that enables your SL viewer to act as a browser, and appears to be active even if you have selected us default browser instead of firestorm.  Beyond that it's also something that can be homemade into allot of various special applications outside of what we are being told is the purpose for it in Firestorm.

I've know it have issues such as having it breed like rabbits on your task manager lists, seeing upto 15 Dullahan hosts working at a time and no one ever seems to actually come out with any explanations about the hows and why's of what's going.  

One thing we do know is often you can end these tasks, or delete dullahan and nothing bad happens... smells like spyware donit?

That brings us to some new behavior as of this springs new firestorm update I'd like to ask about. 

Due to some concerns over the growing number of analytics embedded in everything from your AMD graphics card, your windows itself, to that camera perched at the main entrance of your local Walmart.  I recently increased the check level of my firewall from application default to manual permissions.

That's when Dullahan (from the firestorm directory) asked for permission to get out of the box at logon. 

Firestorm is NOT on my startup and has no services associated to start up so why is a piece of it wanting to shake hands with somebody somewhere that moment I log on? 

Sure that's normal, lots of apps do that until told not to or blocked, it's basic usage analytics.

But after being told no.   That's when the really Odd behavior starts... 

I go to use my browser still having NOT turned on my viewer and low and behold Dullahan is again asking out.  With spyware level repetition, knocking on the door every few seconds. 

I tell it no again, and again, finally making my no permanent.

Here's where things get really sketchy...

Now Firefox will not surf...  black screen...   check a few things, try a few others...

Firefox starts, but where the webpages should appear, blackness.

Nope still black screen... without giving Dullahan permission to send data while I surf my Browser is not going to work.

Just to makes sure, restart... ok Dullahan.. firefox works fine... check if dullahan is running... hmmmm... is hidden.. no where to be seen...

restart... block dullahan... check if it's in task man nope... services? nope... it's no running but it is... hmmmm....

Try Firefox... back to black screen....

Check for same behavior with Bing, same behavior...

Uninstall Firestorm... no surprise Firefox now working normally. 

Many questions arise...   For what purpose other than tracking my Browser usage would Dullahan need to communicate through my firewall when my Viewer not firestorm is not running?    Why can I see it when I launch my viewer, but it's hiding when doing these other things like pinging my firewall and interrupting my browser?

What functions is this version on Dullahan doing that so obviously has nothing to do with SL and everything do to everything else I do online?  

This is very sketchy behavior to me that is NEW as of the latest update to EEP.      Dullahan never behaved this way before...

So like most free things is Firestorm now Spyware?   Anyone else seeing this?

Thoughts???

 

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@kalamityjane an answer from a totally non techy user.  Dullahan is not Firestorm's child, it is from LL.  Is it spyware?  Depends on your viewpoint.  On balance I'd say yes...but who is spying?  Firestorm No...LL perhaps...who truly knows and will say?

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  1. That component is one Linden Lab put in some time ago
  2. The behavior you are seeing is atypical and frankly symptomatic of
    1. Downloading the Viewer from a source other than the official Firestorm page - or
    2. You have something quite different going on
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6 hours ago, kalamityjane said:

So like most free things is Firestorm now Spyware?   Anyone else seeing this?

I'd like you to take a look into the viewer's autobuild file, that is used during building the application - it has definitions of all components that are used by it and corresponding source URL addresses - you can check what's inside the packages and often check source code as well. Dullahan/CEF for Second Life clients originates from the Lab.

Quote

<key>dullahan</key>
<string>Copyright (c) 2017, Linden Research, Inc.</string>
<string>A headless browser SDK that uses the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). It is designed to make it easier to write applications that render modern web content directly to a memory buffer, inject synthesized mouse and keyboard events as well as interact with web based features like JavaScript or cookies.</string>
<key>hash</key>
<string>698e79226d0fb3b935509769a36bffd4</string>
<string>http://3p.firestormviewer.org/dullahan-1.8.0.202011211324_81.3.10_gb223419_chromium-81.0.4044.138-windows64-203261222.tar.bz2</string>

Then please take a look here: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/is_my_viewer_safe and here: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/fs_media?s[]=dullahan#general - and decide for yourself. Then check your antivirus and firewall settings, do a full system scan as well and make sure, like @Solar Legionsuggested, that the viewer you have installed comes from the official website.

Edited by panterapolnocy
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  • 1 month later...

Googling dullahan_host.exe brought me here...

Not using Firestorm, but I am seeing 12 dullahan_host.exe on task manager each consuming almost 9 percent of CPU.

And I haven't even got SL running right now.

My system is SLOW and running SL is like walking in treacle. Is this connected to this topic?

Does anyone have advice for me please?

Emma :) 

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It's frustrating.

Dullahan  is basically the Google Chrome web browser. It's based on Google Chromium, which is Google Chrome minus some proprietary Google stuff like logging into Google. Also no proprietary digital rights management, which is why you can't watch Netflix, etc. in SL. (If you could, you could copy Netflix content, which is why Google won't let people have an embeddable browser with DRM powers.)

The trouble is, it's a full modern web browser, with all the bloat and tracking that implies. Each media on a prim in your field of view fires up another copy of the monster. That's why you see so many copies of Dullahan. That's why it's such a resource hog.

 

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2 hours ago, Emma Krokus said:

Googling dullahan_host.exe brought me here...

Not using Firestorm, but I am seeing 12 dullahan_host.exe on task manager each consuming almost 9 percent of CPU.

And I haven't even got SL running right now.

My system is SLOW and running SL is like walking in treacle. Is this connected to this topic?

Does anyone have advice for me please?

Emma :) 

Sometimes the dullahan_host.exe does not shut down when you exit the viewer, especially if you are still using Windows 7.
Having these ghosted Dullahan processes running will absolutely affect the viewers performance.
When logged out of all SL viewers, just end the Dullahan_host processes via task manager & check in the future that none are left running after logging out of the viewer.

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5 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

Sometimes the dullahan_host.exe does not shut down when you exit the viewer, especially if you are still using Windows 7.
Having these ghosted Dullahan processes running will absolutely affect the viewers performance.
When logged out of all SL viewers, just end the Dullahan_host processes via task manager & check in the future that none are left running after logging out of the viewer.

Thank you so much, Whirly and animats  :) 

Stopping these processes brought the performance on the viewer and my pc back to normal.

I am using Windows 10, any thoughts on what happens on exiting the viewer that prevents these processes being stopped?

 

Edited by Emma Krokus
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On 7/30/2020 at 10:11 AM, Willow Wilder said:

One thing I'll never understand. Not happy with Firestorm -- use another viewer. It really is just that simple.

I switched from firestorm to this viewer

https://alchemyviewer.org/

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

So far none of the other third party viewers in that list or the official viewer would work for me but this viewer.

official viewer is made up of crashes within mere seconds.

On 8/1/2020 at 5:53 AM, Ansariel Hiller said:

but since you are so smart an know best why not fork any viewer project and make your own improved super up to date viewer you can hand out but don't forget to apply for the TPV directory and gather a significant share of users so you might get access to the Havok library we don't want your viewer to be some lame thing without every cool feature out there wait you said you don't care about Havok and mesh upload but what about all your users anyway if you want to continue ripping viewers apart and create frankenviewers consisting of parts of at least three different viewers do so but please stop propagating this as the thing to go every user should do unless you offer full support for that because we won't do it once they broke everything based on your instructions so now I wonder if there is anything else I can say probably not ps I hope you don't find this too difficult to read since I thought I save some time and spare all that actually useless punctuation

I didn't ask for support for my modifications, I was talking about the viewer in general, it is just like windows 10 and people modifying because it performs undesirably.

there are no video tutorial guides for making, modifying or updating viewers.

if you can code, why not port the viewer into a better engine? and make a better viewer, a decent viewer?

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/

https://unity.com/

https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/

besides a reskin and gui theme change, most if not all 3rd party viewers do not offer much and the majority all crash and are over bloated with bugs besides the one I listed hence the viewer switch change.

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3 hours ago, iceing Braveheart said:

I didn't ask for support for my modifications

No, you did not, but at the same time you've said that you're not providing support if something would break after a user would fiddle with the viewer files as presented.

On 7/18/2020 at 8:20 AM, iceing Braveheart said:

all links and information is provided as is without warranty liability or support

And that means, that if a user would have Firestorm viewer performing badly, then where would they go looking for help? Firestorm support, Firestorm devs...

3 hours ago, iceing Braveheart said:

there are no video tutorial guides for making, modifying or updating viewers.

And for good reasons, as such operations are unsupported, not advised and if a user is told to completely reinstall the faulty viewer they usually react in a very... allergic way. Or they don't even mention that their viewer was modified manually like this - making support and devs divisions (inworld or on JIRA) try to help them blindly, which is doomed to fail. And it does apply not only to Firestorm, but to all viewers out there - including the Lab's one. If you are doing this yourself or offering such "tips" for users  - you're starting your own viewer and you need to provide support for it. Just don't forget to be compliant with Policy on Third-Party Viewers.

3 hours ago, iceing Braveheart said:

if you can code, why not port the viewer into a better engine? and make a better viewer, a decent viewer?

It's not a matter of porting, but rewriting from scratch. If you think that changing a graphical engine is that easy, then you may want to check this post by Inara, where there are some comments about Vulkan / OpenGL, as well as this one. I also encourage you to visit a TPV meeting (next one would be on 9th of July, noon SLT, Hippotropolis region) and share your suggestions, ideas and solutions for renderer replacement. Just remember that such thing need to support Mac, Linux and Windows; Do not break existing content; Be flexible enough to support specific Second Life needs (prims, building etc.); Have a decent frame rate; Be usable under LGPL. I assume that if you suggest a list of engines you've did a background check on them or even run some tests. :)

3 hours ago, iceing Braveheart said:

besides a reskin and gui theme change, most if not all 3rd party viewers do not offer much and the majority all crash and are over bloated with bugs besides the one I listed hence the viewer switch change.

If that would be true, then we wouldn't have so many different third party viewers available, suited for different audiences. Or we wouldn't have TPVs at all. That said, I'm happy that you've found a viewer that you like. Have a lot of fun with Alchemy! :) Hopefully you won't have any issues with Dullahan anymore.

Edited by panterapolnocy
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Hi,

I come across this topic because I got warning from my antivirus, that Dullahan tried to access my camera. Is this normal? I covered my camera on my laptop tho, but I am just curious why is it trying to access my camera? It is not from my skype or chrome or anything. I got that since I bought a youtube tv, adding my playlist to the tv and tried to play it. Then the Dullahan warning comes up.

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9 hours ago, leaaaa said:

Hi,

I come across this topic because I got warning from my antivirus, that Dullahan tried to access my camera. Is this normal? I covered my camera on my laptop tho, but I am just curious why is it trying to access my camera? It is not from my skype or chrome or anything. I got that since I bought a youtube tv, adding my playlist to the tv and tried to play it. Then the Dullahan warning comes up.

Dullahan is basically a Chrome based web browser inside your viewer & if you/the viewer is within range of a media enabled object that tries to access your webcam then you will get this prompt, the same way it will happen if you visit such a web site using an external web browser.

Which viewer do you use?  I'll tell you how to see all the media sources the viewer is connected to so if this happens again you can see which web page might be the culprit.  The instructions might be different on each viewer.

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  • 3 months later...

I've been looking at this for a few days but for the opposite reason I wondered why dullan host was not running because it usually is the reason being still unknown but it gave me a chance to research this into such great lengths that the answer was so simple and was staring me in the face.

 

I'm also surprised no one mentioned this for this fix it could not be more simple if it tried.

 

I'm on windows 10 so this will only work on windows I do not have linux or know how it works entirely so im sorry I cant help you there.

 

To fix the Dullahan host and its many errors all you need to do it locate your control panel the best or quickest way you want to do this if you dont already know theres a bar on the lower left hand side type in control panel and click it.

 

Once in control panel type in top right hand search box firewall once in firewall click allow app through firewall click change settings go down to dullahan host and untick it on the left hand side column only  click ok and done.

Restart your browser etc and done.

 

You do not need to remove this service and my advice is to not to remove anything from the browser or otherwise if you do this I cannot help you please do not go deleting things you do not know what they are do not go multilating your viewer so you cannot access anything

 

Doing things this way will let you have everything you want at no risk of damaging the viewer itself

 

I hope this helps someone have a great day :)

 

P.S ( If you have let firestorm through the firewall I also suggest unticking this as well ) 

If you are having problems running it please add it to your anti-virus whitelist, and it, should run fine. 

Edited by ShiningDiamonds
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  • 1 month later...
On 3/11/2019 at 9:58 AM, Whirly Fizzle said:

Dullahan is a headless browser SDK that uses the Chromium Embedded Framework.
https://bitbucket.org/lindenlab/dullahan/src
It's named after the headless rider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dullahan

You should be able to play Flash media in the viewer as long as you have the correct flash plugin installed for your operating system: https://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/downloads#additional_downloads_to_enhance_user_experience
Flash media is technically not supported though, if it works, it works, if it doesn't then it probably won't get fixed.

Certain media types cannot be played with Dullahan because of licensing issues: https://www.firestormviewer.org/why-is-my-tv-not-working/

The LL viewer also uses Dullahan. So does Sansar.
Source code: https://bitbucket.org/lindenlab/dullahan/src

if you find media that will not play with Dullahan that you think should play, then you should file a JIRA issue.
It's probably not worth bothering to file a LL JIRA for broken flash media (it needs to die in hell anyway) or media problems on Linux.
If you have media problems on Firestorm in Linux, you can file a Firestorm JIRA issue.

Oh bet you never took the time to download the 35 gigs and build it. If I am wrong sorry I have been keeping that huge blob now since 2013.  It is embedded chromium  and the top-notch guy  Callum Linden  did great things with it.  Fact  not many want to mess with it in Mac and windows. I have! I stick to   Linux.  Mac and windows. Thank god the best dev Callum Linden does it.

It is the base of the viewer media. It is wonderful. Much better than the old qtwebkit stuff. Callum you are the best.,

Edited by Drakeo
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On 7/26/2020 at 6:03 AM, rasterscan said:

two words, one file.   slplugin.exe

I swopped out firestorms for cool viewers and i can watch tv again. I do NOT advise others to do the same. Altho the TV works again I too still get dulahan error pop ups.  The last time this happened it took a viewer upgrade to fix. Personally I blame html5 and its innocuous but lethal https system. But hey. Brave experimenters may care to harvest various versions of slplugin and swop 'em out and see what happens but, like I say, dont do it kids. Stay safe. Stay careful. The only way is up.

Unfortunately, you did not name your operating system . CoolVL  has a long way to go understanding basic Linux and the /proc. Love his arrogant work. I see he has become more gentle. With the LL dev;s he is a brilliant man but for Linux pretty much lost in a spoon-fed operating system. Winks.

I tested all the install from SL to FS to all of my own.  The media worked in all. It seems as Oz Linden said to me when I was working on qtwebit. This is operator error your not smart enough to use your system with this application .  He was right. And  you are in that boat.

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  • 1 year later...

The Dullahan host can be deleted in the most recent versions of Firestorm (Early 2023) - however, you lose at least 2 things. First, "web search' won't function (which isn't particularly painful if you don't use a browser inside SL). However, I was kind of shocked to find that my Legacy body's HUD didn't work completely without a working Dullahan Host (I couldn't enable BoM). There are some scripting connections via Javascript that need a Dullahan host -- just be aware you will potentially lose them if Dullahan isn't present.

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