Second Life: Firestorm & Linden Viewers

For the past few weeks I’ve been using Firestorm 4.7.9.50527 and Linden 4.1.2 and 5.0.0.320160 (Bento). These versions are much better than the pre-September versions that were out. I suppose some of the improvement is my change to a newer computer with 32GB of RAM. But, I still crash.

When black cats prowl ...

When black cats prowl …

This version of Firestorm is much better than the previous version. I have found that if I am online for more than an hour I will likely crash on exit. This means if I change any Preferences, I need to relog after making the change or backup the settings (recommended). When FS crashes it does not save the settings so, changes in the session are lost. 

I don’t always notice a crash on exit. But, I do when I see a notice that the viewer crashed and wants to send a crash report. It seems to me FS is better about catching those crash-on-exit fails. Or maybe FS is just more in my face about it.

If I start taking pictures I am way more likely to crash to my desktop, on Firestorm and Linden. The viewer just poofs.

My Linden viewer is set to just send crash reports. No pop up begging to send the report. So, I am way less likely to notice a crash-on-exit using this viewer. Plus, I change my settings less often when using the Linden viewer. I tend to use the Linden viewer for shopping, some exploring, and Bento meetings (which I video – Channel).

But, using the viewer for over an hour and taking pictures will crash it, poof.

So, while I am happier with these newer versions of the viewer and WAY happier with my new machine, the viewers do crash. That is a real pain at times.

For instance, N-Core was having a big sale… SHOES… this past weekend, 50% off. Saturday the region was swamped. That is when the viewer, in this case Linden 4.1.2, decided to poof. I had been trying to get in for over an hour. So…. GRRRRrrrrr!

But, I did make it back in on relog. Whew! Still it is a pain to deal with crashes. (I did get some great boots.)

Fortunately crash rates have been pushed down and the Lindens and third parties work on the crash-problems. I don’t know which has the better crash rate, fewer. So, remember to relog before you start doing something for which a crash would be a significant problem.

I’ve also notice the time to rez things and avatars after a crash goes way up. On the new machine I am getting used to a region rendering in a minute of less. So, when a region and the avatars in it take 5 minutes to render, it is annoying.

4 thoughts on “Second Life: Firestorm & Linden Viewers

  1. Ah, crowded sales… I’ve gotten in the habit of derendering all avatar types before I teleport to a sale.

    Not only does this help reduce viewer lag and crash risk, but it encourages me to grab demos and tp out to try them on instead of hogging an avatar slot for hours.

    -ls/cm

  2. That some people have crash issues and others don’t have always been a puzzle to me. You and I have comparable, new, high-end computers yet I can not recall the last time Firestorm (or Linden) viewer has truly crashed on me. I sometimes get network timeouts but that is an entirely different thing. I can only assume it is some kind of network issue. Crashing is not a universal problem with either viewer.

  3. I rarely have crashes on exit (mostly when i was working on the UI and left the preview UI floater open) not exactly sure what’s causing them but it appears to be a singleton destruction e.g something that is suppose to be only there once and is being references by the Viewer all over the place, the Viewer always uses that one instance instead of creating more or multiple. It could just be a shutdown order problem i caused myself or something imply doesn’t shutdown properly (such as voice which was recently changed by Firestorm to shutdown much faster by cutting the wait-for-voice-shutdown timer, which might have led to your increased logout crashrate)

    But overall i haven’t been crashing a single time for other-than-out-of-memory reasons, out of memory is basically still the last thing that makes me crash and with the 64bit Viewer, LL is going to get rid of that too unless they introduce new crashes that is.

    I really don’t know what to suggest to you since it seems to be a Viewer issue regarding Firestorm but then again i haven’t used Firestorm long enough to witness a crash… nor did the LL Viewer for me yet.

  4. I agree that I rarely experience a crash and if I did that would be in an extreme situation. And I have used multiple viewers and try to do extreme things for the most part re: settings etc. That being said I always have my SL cache on a RamDisk. You generally run the viewer with the default settings? What does your memory use by the viewer look like in Task manager. Does Windows Event Log reference anything at the time of your crashes? Does it crash if you use a Linux OS? (try with a Live USB) .Seems like you have reserved yourself to it being normal but I think not. And can’t be your hardware. I can even run the rez Full Texture option and it still won’t crash. I record video in SIMs with 70+ avatars and still no crash. I do have some issues in heavy SIMS rezzing one or two mesh avatars due to alphas so if you don’t have that issue maybe that’s why you crash and I don’t? Seems like you are not alone re: crashing so maybe those people have a similar issue re: OS (I use Win7 and have telemetry updates removed). Maybe you all use the same Firewall or modem?

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