I see a new page appeared in the Wiki yesterday, Viewerhelp: Map File/Second Life/3.2.2. Rand Linden added it.
This is like a table of contents for SL Viewer 3.2.2 help. There is nothing earthshakingly new. Most pages are stubs with very little text. So, if you like writing help articles, check it out.
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.
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.
I came across an old wiki page that is getting new updates. Rob Linden started the page in 2006. For the last few months Oz Linden and Wolfpup Lowenhar have been updating the page almost weekly. If you are interested in what is going on in viewer development, you may find the page interesting.
You can get versions of development viewers made by the Snowstorm Team and TPV Developers.
Be warned that these viewers may have more or less problems than the current stable release of the SLViewer or related TPV.
The Snowstorm download on the ‘test builds’ page seem to the the same link found on the Snowstorm Project page.
The latest Snowstorm Development Viewer is: Second Life 3-1-1-242785 Development.
Tateru Nino of Dwell On It linked to Satiated Desires’ post, A consumer’s guide to Second Life mesh. This is a must read for Second Life resident considering buying mesh clothes. No tech or geek, just the stuff you want to know.
If you think I’m geeky when explaining mesh, check out Satiated Desires. Satiated explains things in plain English.
I did notice one inaccuracy. When one rezzes mesh for the first time one cannot be sure the creator understood how many prims the object actually costs. Everyone is learning. Also, if you scale it up or down, you can increase the Land Impact cost. This can trigger things to return when its Land Impact cost exceeds the land’s limit.
Satiated says this could cause part of your home to be returned. Until recently the things returned were unpredictable. The Lindens have been working on that. Now the most recently changed thing should be returned. In most cases that will be the mesh object you just rezzed.
As much as I use different viewers, I miss lots of the problems. Lance Corrimal, the Dolphin Viewer person, pointed out some of the problems in SL Viewer 3.x. There are a couple of gotcha’s.
SL Viewer 3 and viewers based on version 3.x code are slow. I’ve been using the SL Development Viewer for so long I expect it to be slow. If you are just moving to a 3.x based viewer… well prepare yourself. It affects the SL Viewer and third party viewers based on version 3 code.
We usually see these problems manifesting as problems with alpha layers. If you are wearing multiple layers then an outfit replacement only replaces one layer. That results in layers left behind from the previous outfit.
A work around is to remove the current outfit then add the new outfit. This does leave you nude for a few seconds. So, you need a changing room… or not, if you are an exhibitionist.
If you attempt to teleport more than one person at a time, you have likely run into this problem. Inviting more than one person to tp crashes the viewer.
There is a known problem with login going around. It is not the only login problem. However, the Firestorm-Phoenix team and Lance of Dolphin Viewer fame have provided suggestions for those using their viewers and described the problem. There are possible fixes, if your login problem is from the Viewer 3 Bug in mesh capable viewers, that’s my name for it…
A possible fix is to login with a pre-mesh capable viewer. Once your in, you can logoff and come back with a Viewer 3 version. This problem affects all viewers using SLViewer 3 code, which is all of the new Third Party Viewers with mesh render ability. I think the problem started to appear with version 2.8.something. Any viewer prior to 2.8 should be able to clear the problem.
Another suggested fix is to change your DNS service. When making a change most switch over to the Google public DNS. You can Google for instructions on how to do that on your system. A trick they do not tell you when changing your DNS service is to ping the services you are currently using and the Google services. Place the service with the fastest ping as your preferred first choice. Make the slower of Google or your current DNS the second choice. To make your system more robust use 3 or 4 DNS addresses.
Well... not this bad. Image by: Dr.-Gianluigi-Zanettini on Flickr
Many people are having issues with the SL Viewer crashing. Problems started showing up in the 2.8 versions. For many the crash was at viewer launch or just after login. There are various causes depending on the viewer version and the video driver make and version in use. Newer video cards and drivers are more likely to have a problem. So, it is hard to know the cause of anyone person’s problems. However, the Lindens are fixing problems and things are improving.
Did you know there are lists of residents that use Plurk and Twitter? I didn’t. But I found a link to the lists poking around in the wiki. So, how does one add their name to the lists?
It is easy for anyone that writes in wiki syntax. For those of us that wonder why they made it so hard to write in wikiese I’ll provide ‘how to’ instructions.
SL Wiki User Profile