Tips

Second Life Viewer Problems

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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.

Speed

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.

Outfit Problems

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.

Crashing

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.

Can’t Login Second Life

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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.

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SL Crash on Start

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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.

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Second Life Users and Micro Bloggers

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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

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Hiding Avatars in Second Life

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Rand Linden posts a blog article about how to use the new privacy feature in Viewer 2.8.1 and newer.

See the article here: Hiding avatars and restricting avatar sounds

The change is a new land control. If you don’t own land, you can’t do much with the feature. Understanding it will help you understand the differences between what you see rendered on your screen and what the mini-map tells you.

 

nVidia Driver GTX 460 Problems

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It seems a number of people are no longer able to open SLViewer version 2.7.4 and newer. The problem apparently started in June 2011. So, what is the problem and what is the fix?

nVidia and Second Life Shaders

Some change in the Second Life render pipeline’s shader code has created a problem between the nVidia driver and the OpenGL drivers used by Linden Lab in the viewer. It appears the nVidia GeForce GTX 460 card with any driver newer than 260.99 has a problem.  If the graphics level is set at the default or on High or Ultra, the viewer crashes on login.

The problem does not exist in the nVidia driver 260.99 WHQL and presumably earlier drivers.

Updated 8/15: See TIMOTHY LOTTES‘ article NVIDIA FXAA.

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