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.
Region Crossing Crash
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.
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’.
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!
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.
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
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.
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?
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….
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.
