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Neos VR News

2021.11.10.1253 - Fix random world crash due to race condition in physics events

Just another small patch! Found a race condition bug that was causing random world crashes, should be fixed up (also did some changes under the hood to help catch some potential errors early). Also The Universe locale had a mistake in the credits, this should fix it up!

Compatible with previous builds.

[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]
- Added missing credit to The Universe

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Fixed race condition in physics event dispatch, resulting in random world crashes when using haptic volumes (discovered with @MattyK)

2021.11.10.899 - The Universe locale updates, more diagnostics for freezing bug

Hello everyone! Just another small patch sorry! I'm winding down a bit from things, I'll be taking a week or two break, so there won't be much updates. Here's just a few updates to The Universe locale and some more info to help diagnose the random freezing bug.

Compatible with previous builds.

[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]
- Added more information and tweaks to the watchdog mechanism to help diagnose Neos randomly freezing (based on logs by @Enverex, @orange, @Ryuvi | Technical Artist and @AshtonSparx, GH #3265)
- Neos will now try to crash a world when the sync thread doesn't respond, instead of freezing indefinitely
-- Please send us logs when this happens though!
- Updated "The Universe" credits formatting

- Merged Czech locale additions and tweaks by @rampa_3 (UTC +1, DST UTC +2)
- Merged Japanese locale addition by @Aesc/あすく
- Merged Russian locale addition by @Shadow Panther [RU/EN, UTC+3]
- Merged Korean locale update by @MirPASEC

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- Updated Unity SDK to the latest version and reimplemented Unity texture upload so textures work while running in the editor (reported by @Enverex and @Konshu, GH #2342)
- Fixed duplicate "Create New World" button on the ToolsFacetPreset (reported by @rampa_3 (UTC +1, DST UTC +2), @Cataena, @SUP3RFlyN1NJA GH #3328)

The Universe is now out! Narrative powers of 10 educational experience in VR

Hello everyone!

We are proud to announce that we have just released The Universe in Neos! In this narrative educational experience you'll travel from the simplest elementary particles to the entire observable universe.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Education is something that's always been close to our hearts and where Neos has its roots. Back in 2015 we built the "Neos: The Universe" for GearVR in the Oculus & Samsung Creator Jam, with the dream of one day being able to rebuild this experience in VR.

You can imagine our excitement that we were now able to do just that and make a number of improvements and additions to Neos' world building tools along the way!

Not only that, but we made the experience better - thanks to Neos it's implicitly multiplayer, the objects are grabbable, it's integrated with Wikipedia and some educational worlds by you, our community and you can easily add your own items and compare their scale to the rest of the universe!

You can check out the experience in published worlds in Neos in the "Worlds" tab.

We also have a little behind the scenes video coming soon!

And last, huge thanks to Marinda Botha for providing her awesome voice to the English narration!

2021.11.7.794 - World saving bugfixes, watchdog mechanism to diagnose lock-ups

Hello everyone! Pushing another maintenance build, mostly with bugfixes and things to help with diagnose some more errors.

Compatible with previous builds.

[h2]New Features:[/h2]
- Added engine watchdog mechanism, which will print out diagnostic information when Neos hardlocks (freezes) (based on reports from @AshtonSparx, @AdmiralSoap, @Alex Thorin, @Party_Grunt, bontebok, @orange, @Nordwig, @Cyro and others, GH #3265)
-- This should significantly help us solving cases of hard freezes and lock-ups
-- If your Neos freezes, leave it running for at least a minute before killing the process and then send us the logs

[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]
- Updated dependencies to latest version (notably SignalR Client)
- Added diagnostics for stream messages to the watchdog mechanism
- The watchdog mechanism will now dump the currently processing sync message when Neos is frozen for longer than 30 seconds for diagnostic purposes
- Stream messages that are older than a few seconds are now thrown away instead of processed, reducing the load on the system during hiccups
- Add stricter validation for stream message versions
-- This might potentially fix the random freezing reported by @AshtonSparx, @AdmiralSoap, @Alex Thorin, @Party_Grunt, bontebok, @orange, @Nordwig, @Cyro and others, GH #3265), at very least we should gather some more data
- Add extra diagnostic information to World to the watchdog mechanism
- Added extra diagnostic information for the watchdog mechanism to help diagnose cases of Neos freezing up (based on reports from @AshtonSparx, @AdmiralSoap, @Alex Thorin, @Party_Grunt, bontebok, @orange, @Nordwig, @Cyro and others, GH #3265)
- Improved stacktrace capture mechanism for the watchdog mechanism
- Implemented proper disposal of threading resources when closing a world to avoid holding on system resources for too long

- Merged Russian locale additions and fixes by @Shadow Panther [RU/EN, UTC+3]
- Merged English locale fix by @Shadow Panther [RU/EN, UTC+3]
- Merged Korean locale additions by @MirPASEC
- Merged Japanese locale additions by @Aesc/あすく
- Merged Czech locale additions by @rampa_3 (UTC +1, DST UTC +2)

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]
- World name, description and tags are now snapshotted synchronously during the save process, preventing the world being closed or changed between saving and generating of record breaking the save process (based on report by @Medra, @Creator Jam, @Jeff0SP00K5 and @Rucio, @Shifty | Quality Control Lead, GH #3245)
- Improved error handling when saving worlds, to prevent the save process from getting stuck indefinitely and potentially not logging any save errors (based on report by @Medra, @Creator Jam, @Jeff0SP00K5 and @Rucio, GH #3245)
- Fix last async message encoding throwing exceptions on worlds are just being closed
- Added extra diagnostic information to failed world saves
- Added logging information for errors when resolving UDP Punchthrough and Relay URL's (based on report by @kazu0617 Neos:kazu, GH #3323)
- Fixed world crashing when spawning ToolsFacetPreset in world (reported by @Lexevo, GH #3304)
- Readded accidentally removed Debug button to the Tools Facet Preset (reported by @Lexevo, GH #3305)

2021.10.30.625 - Removed any token functionality from the build on Steam

Hello everyone!

We're pushing an emergency build based on request from Valve to make sure comply with their rules and guidelines, which at this time unfortunately means removing any token functionality from the build. We might not need to necessarily remove everything, but we're being proactive and removing everything we can as a first step - we can always refine this later.

The functionality is conditionally compiled out, so it's not present in the build at all.

You can also learn more about the situations here: https://wiki.neos.com/Neos_Credits/Steam_Changes

[h2]New Features:[/h2]
- Added TokensEnabled LogiX node
-- This provides whether tokens are supported by the user running the build
- Added TokensSupportedDriver component
-- This allows driving a bool depending whether the local user uses a build that supports the token functionality

[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]
- Removed any token related functionality (NCR/KFC/CDFT) from the Steam build on request from Valve
-- You cannot send NCR/KFC to contacts
-- You will receive a generic message when you receive NCR/KFC from user outside of the Steam, but it will not include any details
-- You cannot request deposit address or open withdrawal dialog
-- TipJar components will do nothing on interaction
-- CreditsStatus will not provide any information
-- The Tokens Facet will not display any information