Inventory "Invisible" in SL Viewer

[Aeriabella]

Since the latest SL system upgrade that I performed a day ago,  [ I upgraded to Second Life Release 5.1.2.512803 (64bit) ], I have been missing what appears to be most of my inventory.
I did a clean install, and it seemed to go fine, except when I came in world and went to access a landmark.
It's there I first noticed most of my items appeared to be gone, including landmarks, note cards, clothing, furniture, building items, ... you get the idea.  
Sometimes I am left with an empty looking folder, and other times whole sections of folders are missing.

I say "appears to be missing", because if I log in with another SL compatible viewer, my inventory is all there.   

Has anyone else had this issue?  If so, have you managed to fix it or clear it up?  How did you fix it?
If not, what should I do to clear up this problem?   Does this mean I can't depend on using the SL Viewer anymore and have to switch to something else?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

Edited March 15, 2018 by Aeriabella
formatting

[Klytyna]

5 hours ago, Aeriabella said:

I have been missing what appears to be most of my inventory.

This sounds like a damaged copy of the client side inventory list...

Clean install of the viewer, basically worthless. You other viewers have ok client side inv lists and show your inv, what you need to do is nudge your copy of the SL Inferiority viewer into redownloading the list from the servers.

In a TPV, you'd do this by clearing "inventory cache" (FS) or "viewer history" (Catznip) for example.

If the SL viewer doesn't have these options then you will just have to clear the whole cache. Then you relog some place empty, quiet and ultra low lag and WAIT, while your client re-fetches the list, and when it's finished "fetching x items" on the status bar at the top of the inv window, you should find your inv is back to normal.

 

[Aeriabella]

Phew!!  [ big sigh of relief]  Thank you for the reply Klytyna!    @>`~~;~~~

Yes, it was my SLViewer cache causing the problems. 
I normally clear it very regularly with a little scripted object, but  that was in my inventory,
 ...and, well...with no inventory showing, you know how well that worked.   
Then I was afraid to do anything once my items went missing.   [derp]

I did as you suggested though, and as soon as I cleared my SLViewer, my item and folder count
began to repopulate and go back to where it should have been.
Also clearing the cache helped my overall game performance.

So thank you again, and  Remember folks, a clean cache is a happy game.  

** Just FYI for anyone wondering, -  In SLViewer, to clear the cache, simply go to the ME tab at the top of your screen,
    scroll down to Preferences, => Advanced  => Cache page - Clear Cache [button].
    You can also adjust the storage size of your cache here to bump it up  if your machine can spare the resources.
 

[LittleMe Jewell]

4 hours ago, Aeriabella said:

 [...]
I normally clear it very regularly
 [...]
 

Side note on this -- these days it is not considered a good idea to clear your cache on a regular basis. Clearing the cache real often can cause as many or more problems that it fixes.

[Nalates Urriah]

As LittleMe said, clearing the main cache is not a good thing. Some years ago the main cache was redesigned and the download protocol changed too. Since then the main cache is ALMOST never a problem. Prior to that it was a major PITA. So, the word was 'problem? Clear cache.' NOT any more. For a number of problems clearing the cache creates more problems, especially for anyone with a weak connection to the SL servers.

However, the inventory display in the viewer works off a list downloaded from the SL servers. Once downloaded the viewer checks the list against the servers for updates or changes at login. Somehow that cached list gets damaged or the check gets confused. It most likely happens in a crash on viewer exit or a bad connection to SL. Many of those crashes are not noticed by users. Any problems created by the crash are noticed at the next login. Connection problems can last just a few milliseconds, long enough to confuse the viewer but not long enough for the user to see. So, finding the actual cause is often near impossible. Fix it and move on. Work about cause only if it is frequent.

You can fix the inventory cache. FS has a button to clear JUST the inventory cached-list. But, not all viewers do. So...

•    Look in: Preferences → Advanced.
•    Do NOT click Clear Cache.
•    Find the cache location, hover your cursor over the field titled: Cache Location. See where your cache is stored.
•    Default Location is: C:\Users\[Win_Login_ID]\AppData\Local\SecondLife\   ...(or your viewer name)
•    Close the viewer.
                  Location can vary if you use an alternate cache location, so look it up as above
•    Navigate to that location using Windows Explorer.
•    Find files that end in: .inv.gz and delete, rename, or move them to another folder.
•    Now start the viewer and log into a deserted region; Pooley, Furball, etc. Not teleport, login.
•    Open inventory and type a letter into Inventory Search.
•    The inventory should reload and the viewer will build a new cache.

If you are having connection problems this can go sideways. For that problem Firestorm recommends copying the .inv.gz files from another viewer that has a good copy and putting those in place of the problem .inv.gz files.

An easier Alternative...

• To try to get around this problem:
• Travel to a deserted region
• Open two inventory windows.
• Drag and item (that is an item not a folder) from the first opened inventory window to the second opened window and drop it in. Where exactly it is dropped doesn’t make a difference until you need to clean things up some day. So, drop it where you’ll know where to find it and later delete or move it.
• Log out. Give it a minute or two.
• Log into your last location, hopefully the deserted region.
• Open your inventory and search for an item. This should trigger a reload of your inventory and fix the issues. 

Edited March 27, 2018 by Nalates Urriah
Added alt

[Aeriabella]

Thank you for the information and help,  LittleMe and Nalates. 

I came back to this posting as another friend of mine is having the same issue. 
I will refer them to this link and tell them to  read it all   before doing anything. 
With your information, insight and suggestions, it should be quickly and easily resolved. 

Thank you again for your help.    @>`~~;~~~

[Fionalein]

On 22.3.2018 at 2:37 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

Side note on this -- these days it is not considered a good idea to clear your cache on a regular basis. Clearing the cache real often can cause as many or more problems that it fixes.

But it reapaired my broken inventory on more than one occasion =^.^=, but always try if a relog would not be enough first (often is)

Extra tip: Firestorm has a secondary inventory window, you can access it with ctrl+i, I found it is independent and often works when the main inventory is broken.

 

Edited April 8, 2018 by Fionalein

[LittleMe Jewell]

14 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

But it reapaired my broken inventory on more than one occasion =^.^=, but always try if a relog would not be enough first (often is)

Extra tip: Firestorm has a secondary inventory window, you can access it with ctrl+i, I found it is independent and often works when the main inventory is broken.

 

Firestorm has a button to just clear inventory cache and that can sometimes help inventory issues.  It is the main cache that should not be cleared all the time - though clearing it does sometimes help some issues. 

The regular browser will give you a second inventory window also, via the same shortcut.  With Firestorm, besides the shortcut key, at the bottom of the inventory window is an inventory icon (the little suitcase).  You can also click that to get a new window.

[Chic Aeon]

Just adding a note to this. Sometimes (and the OP sounds very much like this issue) a file has been corrupted and clearing cache does no good. And I agree that it is not advised except in certain circumstances.

My alt had this very OP issue some months back but in Firestorm. On the Firestorm wiki there is a long list of inventory "fixes" and near the bottom of the list is copying over a specific file from the SL viewer to the Firestorm viewer (on your computer). That worked perfectly and fixed the issue so I suspect the same process going in the other direction would work also.  Easy fix. I don't remember the name of the file at all of course, so some sleuthing will be required.