Simulator Versions

[reshma]

How does the sim's simulator versions get updated? 

Do sim owners need to request an update or them or will Linden Labs update them?

 

Thank you in advance!

 

 

[MoiraKathleen]

12 minutes ago, reshma said:

How does the sim's simulator versions get updated? 

Do sim owners need to request an update or them or will Linden Labs update them?

 

Thank you in advance!

 

 

Linden Lab rolls out new versions automatically.  Generally there will be a post in the Technology Forum -> Second Life Server area each week that will have a link to the release notes of what's being rolled out that week, if there is a new version.  I think that new versions are generally rolled out during the rolling restarts that occur can occur on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.  

Looking at the sidebar on https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/simulator/2020-02-05T22%3A16%3A31.536040.html it looks like incremental changes and fixes are rolled out on an ongoing basis, rather then a huge update that is only done infrequently. 

ETA:  I think that there is also a set of regions that may receive an update first, as a final check, before an update to all of the other regions - so they may receive an update a week before the general grid receives the update.  At least that is my understanding from things I've read In in the forums.

Edited February 17, 2020 by moirakathleen

[Qie Niangao]

Exactly as @moirakathleen describes, the Lab handles it all automatically, most often on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

A region may be randomly assigned to the "Main" server channel, or one of the Release Candidate channels that sometimes get a version being tested for the next Main release. The weekly deployment thread shows the different releases scheduled to be installed on the different channels. This week's deployment thread:

By the time a version gets to be a Release Candidate ("RC") it's already undergone a lot of testing internally and usually on the beta grid ("Aditi"). So it's not terribly risky for a region to be on a Release Candidate channel, and sometimes it will get new fixes or features a bit before everybody else. On the downside, RCs also have bugs that will be fixed before they can ever cause trouble on the Main channel, so there's some way for a region owner to request moving from RC to Main channel (and maybe vice versa?), but it hurts testing if there isn't a representative sample of regions on RCs.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Qie Niangao

[Lindal Kidd]

 

Qie's right.  My region of Masocado used to be on one of the RC channels.  When a couple of updates introduced problems, I asked LL (submitted a support request) to put us on the main channel so we wouldn't be an experimental animal any more...which they very kindly did.