Now what the heck is this???

[valerie Inshan]

OK. All was fine until yesterday. Now in some sims (not all) I'm experiencing a (unwanted) technicolor festival. Is my graphics card dying or what? Or could it be region issue? I'm clueless on this one. Home and most of my LMs are fine but....

Apple Fall:

Atelier Visconti:

Home sweet home.... :)

Any ideas to help a helper? :)

ETA: sorry, here are my specs

Second Life 3.7.19 (295700) Oct 20 2014 16:07:52 (Second Life Release)
Release Notes

You are at 232.0, 109.6, 22.2 in Spectrum located at sim10546.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.52.52:13008)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Spectrum/232/110/22
(global coordinates 130792.0, 346478.0, 22.2)
Second Life Server 14.10.24.295913
Retrieving...

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500S CPU @ 2.70GHz (2700 MHz)
Memory: 4096 MB
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.10.1 Darwin 14.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 14.0.0: Fri Sep 19 00:26:44 PDT 2014; root:xnu-2782.1.97~2/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6770M OpenGL Engine

OpenGL Version: 2.1 ATI-1.28.29

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.38.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1h zlib/1.2.8
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.0
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.31
Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded)
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Built with GCC version 40201
Packets Lost: 267/242695 (0.1%)

[Rolig Loon]

Hmmmm... I don;t do Macs, Val, but that looks like a driver problem to me. It doesn't look like the funky effects I got when I had a graphics card die a few years ago, anyway.   I can't explain why it would mess up on some regions but not others, though.  Try changing your Catalyst driver -- either upgrading or going back to a previous version -- and see what happens.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Val,

I'm going to guess (because I don't actually know anything) that your home sim looks fine because the textures are already in cache and that only new texture downloads are getting messed up. This might be related to the ongoing maintenance or some communications kerfluffle. I'd try another viewer, simply to access its texture cache.

If that other viewer is one you've used around your own sim recently, it too should have clean textures for your home. If you get the technicolor festival elsewhere, clear the cache and return home. If the technicolor festival follows you there, you know this is a recent texture download problem and it's not your Mac.

Unfortunately isolating the problem is not the same as eliminating it.

One step at a time!

ETA: Rolig's suggestion of a driver rollback doesn't really work for Mac users, but she may be on to something. I see you're running 10.10.1, which was released last week. Do you think your problem coincides with your latest update?

[Madelaine McMasters]

Rolig, there are no "drivers" to update on Macs. Of course there are graphics drivers, but they're rolled into the OS and not accessible to the user. There are no Catalyst type control panels, everything is provided by Apple and it's all automatically updated with each OS release. There are very few variations in Mac systems, and Apple knows all of them.

[Rolig Loon]

See? I told you I don't do Macs. This is the big reason why. I had an Apple IIe back in 1983 and got really ticked at Steve Jobs's philosophy that customers were too dumb to be trusted with anything under the hood. When they decide to make all decisions for you, you can't just go in and fix stuff. With the exception of a two-year period in the 90s when I was forced to use Macs at work, I have avoided them since that IIe. <grumble, grumble>

[Marigold Devin]

The fact that the funky texture is only showing up on a small number of items suggests to me that its not your graphics card about to die but rather some weird little quirk of Second Life caused by whatever they've been messing up on Tuesdays.

And you say its happening just in some sims you visit.  Make a note if they are Blue Steel or LeTigre or another type of sim, see if they are the same type. That should give a clue that its something accidentally rolled out with the code for the most recent Tuesday updates.

[Madelaine McMasters]

If I'd been forced to use Macs at work, I'd probably hate them as well.

 

I have never evangelized for the Mac, just as I don't evangelize for atheism.

 

People should do what works for them. I've been a Mac girl since I was 14, but used Windows throughout my engineering career. Once I struck out on my own and started really looking at where I spend my time, I realized I could not afford to use PCs. I tossed out my last one in 2006 and have been all Apple since. I run Windows under VMWare when necessary to access my engineering software. The Mac has been the best Windows PC I've ever owned. I never have driver/app/OS incompatibilities and there's only one company to call if I ever have a problem (I've never had to call).

 

I just spent the summer helping the neighbor kid rehab an old Camaro. We're both smart enough to be trusted under the hood, but I'm at a point in my life where I want the wind in my hair to come over the windshield at 40mph rather than from a garage fan on the floor behind me in hopes I won't pass out from brake cleaner fumes.

 

Mom's also a Mac user, not because she can count on me for support, but because she doesn't need it. She understands technology better than most her age, but would rather spend her time, like me, playing with any nearby dogs. Their unexpected behavior is often a delight.

 

And finally, there's a difference between not having a choice and not wanting one.

 

How's that for not evangelizing?

 

;-).

[Rolig Loon]

Dang. Your non-evangelizing beats my mini-rant. It's longer, anyway.

 

Mostly, I don't care what other people use, as long as it works. My mini-rant encompassed my full range of experience with Apple products, a total of about 4 years during which I invested a fair amount of my time, money, and frustration in trying to get comfortable with the magic Apple box. To be honest, I also did a lot of good work on those machines too. The point is that I do good work on a PC too, and I'm happier doing it. Given my druthers (both of them), I'd rather work on a machine I can peek inside of and customize to my own use. But that's me.

 

As you know, I wouldn't waste time on a frivolous rant unless I was ranting with friends. Thank you and Val for letting me get some exercise. I now return you to your regular program, in progress.

[valerie Inshan]

Thank you Rolig, Maddy and Mari for your input and suggestions So, here's a little feedback after some late night investigations.
@ Maddy, the problem didn't start after upgrading my OS. On the contrary, all was running just fine until this Monday morning. The issue just came out of the blue...
@ Mari, your theory about regions servers made sense, so I teleported to many places but the problem appears randomly, be it on the main server, Magnum, Le Tigre or Bluesteel. Sometimes it doesn't show at all, sometimes only on a very few objects and in other places (like Apple Fall) the funky textures are almost all over the place.
It's interesting to note that my land (Spectrum) and Apple Fall use the same server, yet I have no problem at all when at home.

So, finally!.... I switched to Firestorm and teleported to the same places: problem solved! I come to the conclusion that it's a sudden issue within the last version of the official viewer (which I know has been problematic for many users although it was running fine for me).
I guess all I can do now is use Firestorm until an update of the SL viewer is released and hopefully will fix my problem.
I so hate to see SL as if I had too much weed and/or LSD!!!

I'll mark my question as answered by the 3 of you to put it off the main board and I thank you again very much for your support!

[Marigold Devin]

I hope the SL viewer does get updated with less problems next time. Although I didn't join in much last week with forums/answers, there were many more complaints about the SL viewer than usual. I'm pleased Firestorm is looking good for you. Rainbows are beautiful - but only when they're in the sky!

*hugs*

[valerie Inshan]

This strange texture issue has been bugging me all day long. I'm kind of a habit person you see, and I don't feel so comfortable with Firestorm. So, I just cleared my cache (not even needed to do it outside SL), logged back to Pooley and TA-DA!!!!! No more psychedelic thingies anywhere!!! Maddy, you ROCK! Thank you so much and again a big thank to Rolig and Mari! You go ladies!