avatars grey

[phoenix Iskirra]

Hey i reallly didnt know where else to post this. However recently on sl when i go to a place with alot of avatars they all appear grey for at least 10 minutes and its terrbily frustrating waiting for everyone to rezz. Ive cleared my cache but i really dont know what else to do to make everyone rezz faster. It wasnt like this at least 2 weeks ago but now its a constant thing .My avatar rezzes straight away though.

 

Anyone know how i can fix this problem, im figuring atm its not really worth being on sl when all there are is grey people lol. Help..thanks in advance {)

[phoenix Iskirra]

oh and one more thing. When the colour starts to appear the avatars faces are then all blurred for another 10 minutes grrrrr. Is this something everyone else is experiencing as well. Other games that i play dont experience this problem so i dont beleive its my computer

Thanks in advance again

[George Orellana]

This is could be due to slow internet connection. Also you might want to check that in your preferences bandwidth is at least 500. If you are on a viewer like Phoenix then also make sure you have max avatars to render set to the default 35 or could be less if you want but more than 1.

[phoenix Iskirra]

Hey thanks for the reply, im on the imprudence viewer so im still not sure if my settings are right. My internet connection is quite quick so not sure if its that. Anyway ive never changed my settings so im not sure why its doing this now. Im still seeing alot of grey people

[Venus Petrov]

You state that it wasn't like this two weeks ago.  Assuming you are using the same computer, what changed two weeks ago? 

You cannot compare SL to other computer 'games' as SL is a hog.  It is not unusual for me to go to the club where I DJ and it take 7-10 minutes for everyone to rez there (they appear 'grey', too).  You can do things such as reduce your draw distance and lower your graphics setting to help things rez faster.

Do not clear your cache every day.  That, too, can cause things to be grey for several minutes as images reload into your cache.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Hey, I've had this problem as well. What I do is reset my modem, log out of SL, log in to a quiet Sim, let my inventory load, then go to the event.

[Jo Yardley]

What I usually do is set my viewing distance to minimal, about 24 meters.

This gives your computer less textures to load and most of the time you don't need to see much more then that.

You can also set the avatars you load to a minimal.

Then once everything around you has loaded you can change these settings back.

[Luc Starsider]

I agree with George; it sounds like a connection issue.

You could check a couple of things, however.

First, check you packet loss in the performance panel (ctrl+shift+1). You want the number to be as low as possible. Preferably 0.0% for most of the time. If it is high, try *lowering* your max bandwidth in prefs.

Second, if you enable the Advanced menu in me->preferences, and then select consoles->texture console from the Advanced menu, you will be able to see what textures are loading, how they are loading and wheter there are issues with them. These should normally load quickly and without error and will dissapear from the list when they have loaded. (Not sure if this console actually give you any information that will help. I think it is mostly for debug purposes.)

Regardless of what you see in this console, you could try to disable http textures from the Develop menu (also enabled in prefs) to see if it helps texture loading. If it does not help, you should/could enable http textures again.

- Luc -

[Charolotte Caxton]

Yes to what Luc said. Disabling http helps me and so does enabling http if its disabled. I actually encountered this problem at a busy concert shortly after my previous post. Not wanting to leave, I lowered my graphics setting from high to low, let everyone rez, then raised my graphics back to high. Worked very well.

[Linda Brynner]

Hi, 

I do second what Charlotte says with some extensions. When i have this problem i try the following:

1. Shut down your computer.

2. Disconnect all cables from your router, including the power for appr. 30 sec.

3. Connect and Restart all.

4. Clear the SL cache before actually login.

It should work, otherwise it is possible that your internet is overloaded in your area or there is a problem in connection somewhere between your home and LL in San Fransisco.

Check your internet connection all the way from your home to Linden Lab in San Fransisco by using Visual Route 2010. It is a free piece of software you can download.

In this tool enter the address of SL's login server:  https://login.agni.secondlife.com/app/login/

Visual Route will start an analyses with a graph. If there is a hopping point on the internet with a problem it will report it. If there is a problem between your home and your internet provider it will show also in the graph. Packet losses should be at 0% all the way up to the login server at LL.

Best of luck :smileyhappy:

[phoenix Iskirra]

Hey thanks everyone for your replys , ill give al these things ago...ive put graphics on low so far, decreased avatar and draw distance but that hasnt helped so ill look at the other things

 

Someone asked me what has changed in the last 2 weeks, and thats the thing nothing has changed. Just for some reason textures have just become very slow to load.

 

Thankyou again everyone

I hope this helps

[Luc Starsider]

Let's here back from you if anything helped.

- Luc -

[phoenix Iskirra]

Hey there things have got way worse now. I tried everything and avs were still grey. So i decided to uninstall and then reinstall. Now all the avs look like newspapers if that makes sense. They are black and white and you can sort of see some sort of printed words on their bodys. I know this sounds like a joke, but this is seriously doing my head in completely

 

Im ready to seriously give up on sl because i cant be inworld and i cant even see who im interacting with. Im kinda at my wits end now. I cant see how its my internet connection. I have another internet connection that i tried out and it was the same thing. Even worse. SIGHS

Thankyou for eveyrone trying though.

[phoenix Iskirra]

Also before textures load on houses and furniture for example i have see writing as well...its just absolutely crasy and i just dont understand this. Ive been around sl on and off since 2008 now and ive never experienced this.

[Jo Yardley]

Tried a total re-install of SL?

Of going back to a previous version of the viewer or a third party viewer?

[Charolotte Caxton]

Oh wow, once when I logged in, I thought I saw writing on my skin while I was rezzin, it has made me wonder if maybe my skin was like a ripped off copy or something. The writing went away as soon as I rezzed. I wonder what that writing is? As far as giving up on SL, I would say don't. SL is a piece of technology, and as such, is succeptable to flaws/glitches/bad rez days. You have several avatars that are following your issue and we want to help. Don't give up on us and we wont give up on you. Hang in there! I used to have lots of issues, sometimes I still do. I asked alot of questions, upgraded some stuff, and now I am living the dream. You are not alone.

[Luc Starsider]

I agree with Charlotte. Don't give up! We'll figure this out.

I was wondering, perhaps it has been mentioned, what graphics card do your computer have?

- Luc -

[Kascha Matova]

 

---

Luc Starsider wrote:

I agree with George; it sounds like a connection issue.

You could check a couple of things, however.

First, check you packet loss in the performance panel (ctrl+shift+1). You want the number to be as low as possible. Preferably 0.0% for most of the time. If it is high, try *lowering* your max bandwidth in prefs.

Second, if you enable the Advanced menu in me->preferences, and then select consoles->texture console from the Advanced menu, you will be able to see what textures are loading, how they are loading and wheter there are issues with them. These should normally load quickly and without error and will dissapear from the list when they have loaded. (Not sure if this console actually give you any information that will help. I think it is mostly for debug purposes.)

Regardless of what you see in this console, you could try to disable http textures from the Develop menu (also enabled in prefs) to see if it helps texture loading. If it does not help, you should/could enable http textures again.

- Luc -

---

 

Thank you so much for this Luc. I've been having ongoing problems with my cable connection as mentioned in my AT&T thread and so I know I am losing a ridiculous amount of packets as per pingtest.net. I didn't know there was a way to monitor packets within SL, though I was looking for one last night in several different viewers (I've now got Firestorm Beta, SL 2.4, Ascent, Singularity, and Kirstens and only Ascent and Singularity are smooth).

I've gotten to the point where everything stays gray for way too long and where any change I make to my avie no matter how small will turn half of her gray. Like trying to put on a choker and my entire upper body turns gray and stays that way. And I'm still having problems with tp despite reducing my script count, etc. big time.

However in Ascent and Singularity, it's like I'm on my own T-3 while version 2.0 viewers are 56K modems.

I actually had my max bandwidth wide open in each viewer, thinking I was throttling too much for what is supposed to be a 15Mbps cable connection supplying little else but SL while I'm in-world. Things did improve a little when I walked it back down to about 7000-8500, but if I reduce further, won't I start bottlenecking? SL requires a lot of bandwidth.

[Luc Starsider]

YVW. Glad to know what I said was of use to somebody, if not for the OP.

Packet loss, whether from your internet connection or from bandwidth settings in the viewer, will cause grayness and/or issues tp'ing. In many cases you will also get logged out. If you have issues with your AT & T connection, you might want to have a word with them. Funny to hear about the difference between two of the viewers and the LL one. And by funny I mean strange...

It is worth playing around with the settings in the viewer. The bandwidth setting is safe to reduce quite a lot. At times I have kept it at around 500 - 1000 kbps, so it shouldn't be a problem. If things work ok, you can simply increase the value again. If the PC can handle the incoming data at high bandwidth - that's really what the issue with bandwidth - there should not be a problem. But if there is packet loss, reducing the bandwidth will most likely help.

The performance panel has a lot of info in it. I think you can find an explanation of the sections in it on http://wiki.secondlife.com/, but I don't have an exact link. Have a look.

- Luc -

[Freya Mokusei]

Partially loaded/grey avatars over a long period of time are usually caused by packet loss/connection issues or LL-side communication/asset issues.

 

A solid workaround is to change your group tag. For some reason, this forces all avatars nearby to re-rez.

For those that don't rez, try going out of viewable range (fly up real high maybe) and then come back down.

Failing all of that, the odds are that the texture baking is borked on their end, and a polite IM to ask them to rebake usually works great.

 

Using a combination of these three steps, I never see grey avatars. Good luck.

[Charolotte Caxton]

@ Freya: Thank you for that. Changing group tags has worked wonders for me.

[jennylongview Innovia]

Nods yes.. in crowed sims,  usally happens, often followed by a crash... So clear the viewer cache also make sire that the computer is viewer friendly.. I miss the sl viewer 1xxx. Also try the computer cache is clean, and defraged...