Second Life Viewer Troubleshooting

Over the years I have seen Second Life™ and the viewers we use change. Computers, screens, speakers, joysticks, and video cards have all advanced as well. But when things go wrong the types of problems and how to troubleshoot them has remained mostly the same. And when it comes to “which viewer” they are all the same for troubleshooting purposes.

We now have Artificial Intelligence (AI) and it is advancing. It is possible to use AI to help troubleshoot. But it can add some complication. But give it a try.

Troubleshooting with Firestorm Viewer

Here I’ll cover the basic and advanced steps needed to troubleshoot issues. Basic understanding of where a problem may exist can save you days of work… literally

Do you actually have a problem?

There are ‘problems’ and there are ‘glitches’. Problems are persistent. Glitches are transitory. They do not repeat, consistently.

Glitches are fixed by shutting down the viewer and relaunching. This is normally the first step in troubleshooting. Some glitches confuse Windows/Apple operating systems and the computer needs to be restarted, second step a issue persists. Network glitches are fixed by restarting your modem/router/gateway device, often the third step.

The point here is these steps are easy and quick.

If after the restarts the problem persists then you have a ‘problem’.

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Tiny Protest in Second Life

Well, it is the Tinies that are protesting… 

Seems a server update in November 2018 distorted how Avatar Hover works for Tiny avatars. (BUG-225893) They now float about a foot (0.3m) above the ground.

Tinies Protest the Continuing Second Life Hover Bug!

Tinies Protest the Continuing Second Life Hover Bug!

The Lindens have found the problem in the change to the Bake Service made in preparation for Bakes On Mesh. The fix is in QA and should roll out ‘soon’.

The Tinies pulled off a cute, humorous, and hopefully effective protest. You can read more here, Tinies Protest at Governor Linden’s Mansion. Whether or not the protest was needed… I doubt it. I suspect it bumped the priority for this fix.

Peace Comes to Second Life… Really?!?

Well, for about a minute… when all the guns in Second Life broke… Now, there are work around steps and viewer fixes and… Whatever, you can again shoot those deserving of annihilation.

So, what happened? Why can’t I shoot that scumbag werewolf and save the hot mini-skirted damsel? Seems the Lindens fixed a problem in the process of building Horizons, that’s my thinking. As they expanded controls for use with Advanced Experience Tools (AET), Horizons is an advanced experience, the scripting functions needed a bit more control. So, as reported some time ago we got new SIT commands. See: Second Life News 2016 w45 and for more details Scripting.

Fallout Wasteland - liqueur.felix

Fallout Wasteland – liqueur.felix

I suspect somewhere in that process the Lindens noticed some REALLY OLD bugs, think beginning of SL time, which are now just oddities for most scripters and fixed them to make it easier (and likely make it more logically correct) to do Horizons. The result is all the weapons designed to deal with those bugs/oddities broke.

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Second Life: Viewer Problems

The Quick Graphics Viewer is out. Some people are having some problems with the viewer. A semi-clean install seems to fix the problem. So, what’s semi-clean install?

Hell Is Other People

Hell Is Other People

  • Restart your computer. Do NOT start the viewer.
  • Download the viewer from Second Life Download.
  • Find your install folder, usually C:\Program Files (x86)\SecondLifeViewer (Windows)
  • Delete it. This deletion will not erase your settings, cache, inventory cache, or chat logs.
  • Install the SL Viewer using the file you downloaded. The installer will say you already have it installed and ask if you want to install anyways. Yes.
  • Try it.

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Second Life: Aditi Inventory

Recently a fix for updating of our inventory in ADITI (preview/beta) grid rolled out. Some people are working with it now. I started writing about the changes being made this last December in: Second Life’s ADITI Inventory Update Change.

Curious....

Curious….

Today is the first time I’ve logged into Aditi since the change rolled out. So, my inventory has yet to update. I am hoping for a Friday morning update.  Continue reading

The Weekend’s Problems

This weekend I was learning how hard it can be to recover a Windows 10 system when the user has no idea what their password is… make your recovery disks, please. That saved me from dealing with Second Life’s problems this past weekend.

For a good description of what happened see Danial Voyager’s blog: A difficult weekend for Second Life. Or read the Lab’s post: Why Things Were Less Than Optimal This Past Weekend.

Second Life: Updating Friends List Fails

This problem is/was happening pretty often. There is no user side fix. It requires a support ticket. The details follow. The error message is:

Login failed. Despite our best efforts, something unexpected has gone wrong. Please check status.secondlifegrid.net to see if there is a known problem with the service. If you continue to experience problems please check your network and firewall setup.

This error started appearing about last Tuesday, 12/19.  Continue reading

Second Life My Viewer Problems

Every so often I hit a point where my Second Life™ experience sucks from poor viewer performance. When that happens I start changing viewer brands in hope of an improvement. I troubleshoot starting with the easy and work to the hard. But, this time I over looked an obvious problem.

I Still Remember

I Still Remember by Thurkearan of Darrath, on Flickr

These days I mostly use the Linden made viewer and it is almost always one of the RC versions. I like being on the cutting edge. Over the years Imprudence, Emerald/Phoenex, Exodus, Kirsten’s, and Niran’s were the viewers to use, at various times, to be on the cutting edge. That has changed.  Continue reading