XML-RPC Channel changes

I've read a few threads about this, that seem to contradict each other.

I have about 20 different objects, each with an XML-RPC channel open. On setup, the script tells me the XML-RPC channel in chat, then I manually type it in to the webserver.

I found that the XML-RPC channel had changed for just 3 out of the 20 objects today.

According to this thread:

/139/65/159116/1.html

the channel shouldn't change unless something's done to the sim. But as all the objects are on the same sim and most of them didn't change, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Does anyone know how/why the channel would change, and if there's a way I can spot it - other than by having a timer regularly calling llOpenRemoteDataChannel and checking if the channel has changed? I'm trying to avoid having the script use timers etc, which was the point of using XML-RPC instead of just regularly polling the webserver.

I'd try to test this out myself, but the nature of the beast means it might not happen for weeks - some of these objects have been running for a few weeks with no problems.

I think if you're going to use XML-RPC, it is generally a good idea not to rely on it completely. The occasional check for a changed channel, and maybe even the occasional poll to the webserver, aren't bad ideas. I would suggest not even sending any kind of important data over the XML-RPC interface; it is probably better to send a simple "update available with this sequence number" to the object and then have it retrieve the data over HTTP. With the buggy nature of XML-RPC in SL, it is probably best just to use it for a timely asynchronous notification mechanism.

I would also suggest sending the channel to the webserver via an HTTP POST, so you can recover from these problems without manual intervention. Maybe still send a log IM/e-mail so you can get an idea of how things are going, but it's so much easier to hook them (back) up automatically....

Thanks for the info Hewee.

I think I'll just drop in an occasional check for a changed channel and leave it at that. Up until now I've not really had problems, apart from the occasional slow response.

I've had more trouble with http. I'm getting lots of failed http requests on a daily basis - and there's no way the sim is reaching the throttle limit as I'm the only one using http on it.

Anyways, thanks again for the advice.