Avatar attachments continually being detached

[Vulpinus]

I don't know if this is a server or viewer issue (I'm guessing server).

When TP'ing, maybe even just crossing regions given how often it seems to happen now, my avatar frequently loses some attachment or other. It's been going on for ages but the last couple of months or so (at a guess) it seems to have got much worse.

It's also definitely not just me; people around me are commenting on it happening to them. It is not a case of the viewer simply 'forgetting' to render them - they are actually detached and I have to go to my inventory or saved outifts to reattach them.

It's so frequent it's become a running joke with people in the sailing battles... "you blew my hat off that time" etc.

Yesterday I suddenly noticed my mesh hands we missing. I made a joke about it, reattached them and then TP'd to the adjoining region to start sailing. When I arrived, my mesh feet, sword and coat collar had been detached. It's really not funny any more... "please don't shoot me yet - SL has stolen my pistol".

Some time ago I asked on the Firestorm group for help, and was told a fix by toggling a debug setting. That has no effect now, if it ever really did.

Please can someone point me to the best JIRA to vote on? I know there are some relating to this because I found them before, but my search-fu is failing to find a good one.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Vulpinus wrote:

I don't know if this is a server or viewer issue (I'm guessing server).

When TP'ing,

maybe

even just crossing regions given how often it seems to happen now, my avatar frequently loses some attachment or other. It's been going on for ages but the last couple of months or so (at a guess) it seems to have got much worse.

It's also definitely not just me; people around me are commenting on it happening to them. It is not a case of the viewer simply 'forgetting' to render them - they are actually detached and I have to go to my inventory or saved outifts to reattach them.

It's so frequent it's become a running joke with people in the sailing battles... "you blew my hat off that time" etc.

Yesterday I suddenly noticed my mesh hands we missing. I made a joke about it, reattached them and then TP'd to the adjoining region to start sailing. When I arrived, my mesh feet, sword and coat collar had been detached. It's really not funny any more... "please don't shoot me yet - SL has stolen my pistol".

Some time ago I asked on the Firestorm group for help, and was told a fix by toggling a debug setting. That has no effect now, if it ever really did.

Please can someone point me to the best JIRA to vote on? I know there are some relating to this because I found them before, but my search-fu is failing to find a good one.

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One thing that will help is to try to only have one attachment on any given attachment point. Multiple attachments on a single point are often the ones that are detached in this case. Rigged mesh attachments can be attached to any attachment point, not just the ones they default to or the ones that would seem logical. For instance, your feet will work exactly the same whether they're attached to your legs or your ear. You might have better luck if you spread the attachment load around.

Also, it sounds like you're living a very attachment-heavy lifestyle - weapons, prim-collared clothes, mesh hands and feet, etc. All these items need to be tracked and sent from one region to another. You should ask yourself if you really need all those attachments all the time. It might be better to forego the mesh hands and feet for sailing and combat and save them for quieter times, for instance.

[Vulpinus]

Hmm... hadn't thought of things sharing an attachment point being an issue. Will check that, thanks. I know I can move rigged mesh.

Most of thet time I don't actually have very much attached, at least in my opinion.

I tend to use the system body and head, with the mesh hands (the only thing attached there, and to a single hand point), an all-in-one mesh outfit (which I added the collar to in this case), hat, hair, beard, clay pipe and a sword and occasionally pistol. I was barefoot on the day in my OP, hence the feet as well. Oh, and two HUDs.

Less frequently I'll be wearing more (like an older prim/sculpty outfit with assorted bits, or my mesh body if I'm showing more flesh.

I appreciate your answer (especially the shared attachment point... point) but really, if the servers can't keep track of the eight or so things I generally wear, there's a problem. I used to wear much more (pre good mesh outfits) and didn't have this issue.

 

[Whirly Fizzle]

If you are using Firestorm, try the Firestorm Bento Alpha viewer.

This build contains an experimental fix for the attachments detaching or ghosting on region change problem.

Info from the Ansariel Hiller who added the fix:

I dumped an experimental fix for FIRE-12004 (attachments getting lost on TP/region crossing) into LGPL, which is based on Kitty's attempt to fix it viewer-side, but done a bit differently:

For some reason, during a TP/region crossing, the viewer might receive a "kill object" message from the region, which will then mess up the COF and maybe even the scripts in the attachment as well.
The idea now is: whenever the avatar is in the process of a TP/region crossing, ignore any messages of killing attached objects.
This works quite good for TPs. For region crossings it needs some working around insufficient information if a region crossing has been successful or failed and might eventually lead into a situation of stuck attachments in some situations.
Rebaking (CTRL+ALT+R) or changing outfits should unstick them.

Note that on Firestorm, doing a rebake with CTRL+ALT+R forces a resync of the Current Outfit Folder (COF).

 

Since this is an experimental fix, I added 2 settings which are both enabled by default:

• FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFix enables the fix
• FSExperimentalLostAttachmentsFixReport will report to nearby chat if a kill object message was received during TP or region crossing and also show for which object, so it allows checking if those attachments are still there and working

 

You can get the FS Bento download links by joining the Phoenix-Firestorm Preview Group (secondlife:///app/group/7ba4569c-9dd9-fed2-aaa7-36065d18a13c/about) inworld.  The download links are in the group notices.

JIRA Issues

There's hundreds of them, here's a selection...

 

• FIRE-12004 - Upon teleport, attachment points with mulitple attachements lose some of the attachments - phantom scripted attachments after teleport.
• FIRE-17998 - Attachments Still Falling Off in CR
• BUG-7761 - Phantom scripted attachments after teleport (see all issues linked this one also).
• BUG-40591 - Attachments problems sim crossing, sitting etc

 

 

 

[Ayesha Askham]

You may call me unreasonable or naiive, but while it is great that there is an experimental fix being trialled by Firestorm, the root problem remains completely unaddressed server-side.

The fact is that communication between servers is simply not good enough, and if the connection to the user is also less than optimal, the problem is made considerably worse.

That there are several JIRAs both at FS and LL indicates this is not a single problem, but the wearing of a single attachment on a given point is neither a reliable fix nor is it practicable for many (not me I freely admit) in this day of mesh avatars.

It would be a great relief to hear that Linden Lab is making some effort to ameliorate this syndrome; for some it might actually be of more value than a wedge of extra prim capacity for landowners.

From what Whirly says there seems to be a serious flaw in the process by which one sim hands off to another.  That is the nub of the issue and it is there that effort needs to be concentrated.

I am by no means dissing FS, I have used it for years, but the issue is every bit as severe on the LL viewer and thus it is to LL that we must look for a solution.

 

[Callum Meriman]

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Whirly Fizzle wrote:

If you are using Firestorm, try the Firestorm Bento

Alpha viewer.

 

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Awesome, as an avid sailor who experiences this problem so much (and I have one attach per point for my sailing outfit) I will look forward to trying it.

I promise I will try double hard to improve my Jira quality too ~~~

[Vulpinus]

Thank you Whirly, I'll give that viewer a try when I get chance.

At the moment, I've suddenly developed a huge (4%) UDP packet loss which I'm trying to get to the bottom of; nothing to do with the above probelm though. There's always something, :rolls eyes:

[Callum Meriman]

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Ayesha Askham wrote:

You may call me unreasonable or naiive, but while it is great that there is an experimental fix being trialled by Firestorm, the root problem remains completely unaddressed server-side. 

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As you have been in SL for about 8 years you should know that this has been improved over the years, Back in 2006 we would rubber band half a region just walking over a boundary.

In 2008-ish we could not teleport without our hair and shoes being lodged in our nether regions. Ah the joy of those days.



 And now in 2016 we have mostly stable crossings with the ones causing the issue seeming to be those few crossings where you travel on a parallel but quite diverged path from your vehicle. I say this as if you do a journey with clean crossings all the way then most of the time your attachments survive, get just one messy and most will go.

In my eyes, the root of this problem lays in technology, the limitations of UDP, and probably the original design from the a decade and a half ago.

But to say the problem is "completely" unaddressed is incorrect. The problem exists, but it is significantly less than in past years. Sorry.

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Ayesha Askham wrote:

The fact is that communication between servers is simply not good enough, and if the connection to the user is also less than optimal, the problem is made considerably worse.

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Technology and design rear their heads. UDP by nature is a protocol that does not guarantee delivery. Being a somewhat Oldbie you will know that the Lab have been slowly taking things away from the UDP channel. Bringing the in asset cache and also moving a lot of things to TCP/IP. One hopes this long and difficult retooling keeps happening in areas that would benefit.

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Ayesha Askham wrote:

That there are several JIRAs both at FS and LL indicates this is not a single problem, but the wearing of a single attachment on a given point is neither a reliable fix nor is it practicable for many (not me I freely admit) in this day of mesh avatars.

 

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We have 32 attachment points. Rigged mesh can be placed on any one of those - as an example I wear my body on my upper left thigh and my feet on my upper right thigh. I have used applier on the mesh body rather than more mesh.

Yes, this won't be suitable for everyone - especially complex avitars like dragons, horses, wolves and so on, and yes there is a problem with non-rigged - but some of the points are duplicated - neck and chin / mouth and nose / spine and pelvis - this can help in some cases.

Avid vehicle users, and I am sure you are one, then take what they can attach and work hard to try and alter their costume to suit vehicle use, and this can mean sacrifices, as an example, losing collars is a big sacrifice for many but a huge boon to smoother crossings.

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Ayesha Askham wrote:

 

It would be a great relief to hear that Linden Lab is making some effort to ameliorate this syndrome; <snip>

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They have been, a lot, a real lot. And one hopes they continue to.

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Ayesha Askham wrote:

From what Whirly says there seems to be a serious flaw in the process by which one sim hands off to another.  That is the nub of the issue and it is there that effort needs to be concentrated. 

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I wouldn't exactly call it a flaw myself, more an unfortunate convergence of a lot of variable and sometimes uncontrollabe factors including network use by other people of our shared world and as you say at the start of your post even one's own network connection.

 

 

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Ayesha Askham wrote:

I am by no means dissing FS, I have used it for years, but the issue is every bit as severe on the LL viewer and thus it is to LL that we must look for a solution.

 

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Personally I really appreciate and greatly value any attempt made by any developer to help lessen the problem. A lot of the best solutions to problems and a lot of fantastic advancements have come from people who are not employed by the lab. People in the open source community.

Yes, there is a lot of back end work that the Lab can do, but the contribution of the unpaid, open source developers and all the people who assist them is incredible, and something every single person in our shared world needs to really say thanks for.

[Ayesha Askham]

Callum

Perhaps my comments were a little ignorant, but let me just say this:

Indeed, since the introduction of Windlight, sim boundary crossings have been rough and some aspects of the issue have been tackled, and with varying degrees of success, overcome.  If one sailed in SL there was a finite chance that your avatar would end up ghosted at a sim edge (several of my friends created field-rescue alts for no other purpose than to un-ghost their main accounts), rubber-banding was rife even within sims never mind at borders.  As to the folded avatar and handy shoe-and-hair storage :smileyembarrassed: problems... the less said about those the better!

No doubt the removal of my scripted attachments would improve matters I cannot argue that case, being an SLlong RLV user.

One thing I would take issue with is the attention, or lack of it, that SL developers have shown recently, leading to the re-introduction or significant worsening of the attachment BUGs and sim-sim crossing whether by movement or TP.  The evidence of inadequate QA is there for all to see in recent updates.

All this is largely irrelevant though.  As you rightly say SL is incomparably better than it was in 2008, but then, so it should be!

All praise to the determined and self-motivated volunteers in the TPV development corps.  (I may have mentioned that before but it bears repeating!)

NB: Edited to remove typos!

[Callum Meriman]

O_O The folded Avatar bug. That was also fun!

 

 



There is no doubt that this raft of problems with sim crossings and lost HUDS and attachments some days gets my goat as well. Add in orbs, crossings that don't recover (relog), people blocking sailing channels with aircraft carriers and arriving naked to everyone else and... yeah some days it's easy to get grumpy.

/me pokes any Linden who does read this - "now you've gotten past the extra prims a few new vehicle related fixes taken off the huge list of work would be amazing."

 

[JoyofRLC Acker]

Is there any connection to the problem of avis falling off vehicles on sim border crossings?

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

I have to agree that things have been a lot better.

I used to be able to fly non-stop long-distance flights. Not any more. Same plane, same scripting, far worse performance.

No obvious relation to draw distance, or amount of scenery within draw distance

Very high memory consumption assoiated with number of avatars in the region, reaching 6GB with a 64-bit version of Firestorm set to 32m draw distance, and the RAM doesn't get released.

I can see why a viewer tracks position data for AVs in the same region, even when they're not visible. And somewhere close to 100MB per avatar seems excessive.

Being told "It's you connection" is rather wearing.