Second Life

Things about SL

Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection

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Troubleshoot Your Second Life Connection

I made this post to avoid typing this information into the SL Forum a gazillion times. I was answering this type of question for the third time today. (Last updated April 2023)

There are a number of reasons one cannot log in or stay logged into Second Life. One of the more significant reasons is a poor connection. You may have a good Internet connection and a bad connection to SL. A poor connection can be caused by multiple problems in different locations. In this article, I try to give you some troubleshooting tips to help find where the problem is and who can fix it.

The problem may be in your computer, router, modem, ISP’s hardware, backbone hardware, Linden Lab’s hardware, or their software. We need to figure out which.

I’m Windows-based. So, this article is Windows oriented. But, all the same problems exist for Mac and Linux users. The Mac and Linux users will have to translate Windows commands. Sorry. I just don’t know them.

Troubleshooting

In the Viewer

If you can log into Second Life, do so. If not, check the grid status to make sure it is not a problem with Second Life. Or look at the concurrent user graph at Etitsup.com. You should see a smoothly curving line. An abrupt drop shows a general problem.

Also, try logging into a different region. Before logging in open Preferences->General->Start Location – Show at Login and enable the option. After closing Preferences, you’ll see a new field by the login button, ‘Start At:’. Try a Linden-owned region like Pooley or Furball. If you still cannot log in skip down to On Your End and SpeedTest.net.

Update: Jan 2018 – SpeedTest.net has changed. They no longer allow you to test to a city or server of your choice. So, for these tests, the site is was useless for our purposes. You’ll have to Google for an Internet speed test on a specific server and hope to find a good one. I’m looking… Found – see: Internet Speed Tests. – Update April 2023 – The Firestorm Viewer Team has information up on testing your connection speed HERE. The article has been updated but while they tell how little the Max Bandwidth setting will affect performance they also left all the advice for what it can affect from days of old. Don’t expect much from tweaking your bandwidth setting.

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Regions Crashing

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Grid status popped an announcement about 11:30 AM SLT/PT that regions are crashing and dropping offline. The problem started over the weekend. The Lindens are working on it.

They say:  If your region is offline, please go to your support portal and submit a case using the following types:  “Land & Region” > “Report an Offline Region”.  This queue is being closely monitored to ensure the fastest turnaround possible. 

The post is here: Ongoing Issue with Offline Regions

Shakespeare is Leaving #SL

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We hear lots of accounts of people leaving Second Life. I suppose they are. They always have. According to Metaverse stats the average player retention is two years. But, we also have new people signing up and new regions coming online. It is hard to know if Second Life is gaining or losing ground. So, may be region loss does mean SL is shrinking. Region loss has been a trend. We have been measuring SL success by concurrent users. That is decreasing, but seems to have reached a plateau. The Lab says in general more people joining and playing but spending less time in Second Life. There are reasons for that, so it may be true. And there are some interesting reasons that The Old Globe Theater in Second Life is closing.

Metaverse still provides some statistics on Second Life. Their closing and new regions graph shows a little surge in regions opening. I certainly would not call it a new trend. It may only be from this weekend’s sale on regions, US$1,000 off. Only time will tell if the trend is changing. But it is a change.

Metaverse's Closing and New Regions

Customer Service

The story behind Ina Centaur leaving and allowing the four regions the Old Globe Theater occupies to close is described in a blog post and letter to the patrons of SL Globe Theater and Primtings. You’ll find it here: Our Magic and Our Passing – Goodbye from the SL Shakespeare Company, Primtings, and sLiterary [SIC].

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#SL Scripting News Week 43

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There was an informative discussion in the Scripting Group. The scripting group’s general discussion meetings are good meetings for advanced LSL programmers to attend.

Operators Precedence

If you don’t understand precedence, sorry Google for an explanation. (LSL Precedence) It was brought up that the operators || and && should have equal precedence. Kelly Linden conformed that they are not equal.

Estate Owners Access List

The update running on the release channels will likely make it to the main channel this week. This will give residents the ability to use the new LSL functions discussed in the Server Update News here. ( llManageEstateAccess(integer action, key id) ).

The idea behind this function is it will make it easier for estate managers to manage ban lists.

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#SL Mesh News Week 43

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Lots of news happening this morning. Some viewer related news came out in the Mesh Meeting. For those that have been trying to upload mesh with the new viewer and OpenGL fixed viewers news hits on what the problem is.

Mesh Meeting in Second Life ADITI

SH-2595

SH-2595 – Upload menu won’t calculate fees. This problem blocks your ability to upload. Models that would previously upload will not work. Prep Linden has posted in the JIRA thread. It seems there was a fix and it got lost not making it into a merge. However the fix is in the Development viewer.

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