Crossings, Viewer Settings, and a Firestorm Debug Option
Region crossings in Second Life continue to be one of the frustrating technical challenges for sailors, drivers, pilots, and anyone who travels. The problem isn’t new — but the conversation recently started again, especially with new users, and users that have never understood the problem. Thus, this post.
The only thing new on the subject is a Firestorm debug setting that some residents are experimenting with. So, I’ll write that first.
This post pulls together what I’ve learned from forum discussions, viewer testing, and a deeper look at how the viewer and simulator interact during a crossing.
A Debug Setting: FSEventPollCoreRetries
The new-to-me part is from a forum user, Jaylinbridges, who pointed out a Firestorm debug setting I hadn’t noticed before:
FSEventPollCoreRetries.
I think this setting controls how many times the viewer retries certain internal event‑polling operations.
- 0 — Uses the newer Firestorm 7.2.3+ event‑polling logic
- 5 — Reverts to the older 7.2.2 behavior, which some users say is more stable
There is currently no official documentation explaining what the “0” mode does internally. Nor is this setting or similar documented the Linden Lab information. The best I can say is taken from the variable’s name, which suggest it handles event polling and would likely affect region transitions.
Some users report fewer crashes and smoother crossings when setting it to 5, especially on busy regions or older hardware. Others see no difference. It’s one of those “try it and see” settings.
Read more… page links below.