SL crashes computer after recent windows 7 update

[Renomaki]

For YEARS, I used to be able to play Second Life without issue, able to explore the world, hang with friends, and indulge in my photoshoot hobby. All was good, until a few days ago when the latest windows 7 update came.

Ever since then, I have been completely baffled at how Second Life has become COMPLETELY UNSTABLE, and I can't figure out why (or at least, I think I know why, but am not sure if it is the case...).

Whenever I log into the game, it either causes my whole computer to freeze up the second the game loads in, or I get a minute or two to run around before it freezes up and forces me to restart my computer. I tried all kinds of solutions: A deep virus scan, going from 64 to 32 bit, switching from firestorm to the official viewer (which almost worked, until it caused my system to freeze up after about 10-20 minutes), and I even considered doing a rollback of my Windows 7 update, but sadly it failed because something went wrong during the rollback, meaning I am stuck with the current version (the system implied that the anti-virus might have had something to do with the failure).

This saddens me a lot, and I wish I knew why this was happening.. Is it because I use Windows 7? Is it not compatible with it anymore? Do I have to upgrade to windows 10? I know my friend uses it and his Firestorm viewer works just fine, and the problems only started happening after the most recent Windows 7 update a few days ago (the night before that, I did a shoot with a friend with no issues whatsoever).

I don't want to go and do something rash, though... I wanna see if you guys can provide some suggestions as to what to do before I go out of my way to install 10. Should I try to roll back again? Is it another tech issue? What is a poor Second Lifer to do?

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Gonna need the system specs to really understand what is going on here.

 

 

[Renomaki]

3 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

Gonna need the system specs to really understand what is going on here.

 

 

I'll have to wait for my brother to get home from work, he'll be able to help me get my specs. 

I may be a bit nerdy, but I'm no expert. He, on the other hand, took IT classes, so he knows his computers.

[Renomaki]

Right, I got my specs with help from my brother.

ASUS M5A97 R2.0 Motherboard

AMD FX 8320 8-core Processor

GIGABYTE GTX 1050 Graphics Card

1 TB Drive

8 GB Memory

750 Watt PSU

My system is 64-bit

And of course, I am running the latest version of Windows 7 Home Premium. Hopefully I am not missing anything.

If anyone can help me figure out why my SL has been crashing/freezing up hardcore in the last couple days (thus preventing me from being able to use it), that would be swell.

[Klytyna]

6 hours ago, Renomaki said:

and I even considered doing a rollback of my Windows 7 update, but sadly it failed because something went wrong during the rollback, meaning I am stuck with the current version (the system implied that the anti-virus might have had something to do with the failure).

Get your "computer classes" brother to disable windows auto updates (at this point MS want everyone to migrate to win 10, and being a suspicious old bag i wouldn't put it past them to include stealthed cripple ware in updates, the way they tried killing off open gl years ago).

Use the win 7 install disk to reinstall/repair your OS, reinstall the vendor specific drivers for your graphics card. It's possible that part of the latest "auto update" was some new version of .net, which occasionally includes "kill off opengl" segments that overwrite your cards opengl drivers, and SL uses... OpenGL.

Crippling that alone could cause poor performance, driver crashes, hangs, graphical glitches that might make you assume your card was dying, etc.

Make sure the pc is NOT connected to the internet while you do all this, and turn off the anti-virus, while you sort it out, it might be preventing repairs/rollbacks on critical files out of a misguided sense of duty.

You can reenable the AV once you've fixed your win 7, and NO you don't NEED to downgrade to the win 10 malware.
 

[ellestones]

there was a security update to Microsoft Graphics Component - KB44713318 11 December 2018

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4471318

what might be is the Microsoft update process switched to Safe Mode (the video card using the MS standard video driver to do the security update). Then after finishing the update never switched the NVidia graphics driver back on. So SL is crashing because MS standard graphics driver and not NVdia

ask your brother to switch it back to NVdia driver, if you not sure how to do  this

[ExtazziRUS]

Win7 not have problems

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, ExtazziRUS said:

Win7 not have problems

It  has problems, THEY all have problems.

[Renomaki]

I'll have my brother look at this and we'll attempt to fix it today with what we know. If by some miracle we get it running properly without it crashing/freezing up the system (let alone after running for a few minutes), I'll let you guys know.

Updating to windows 10 is a last resort if we can't fix windows 7, which would be a shame because it might mean that certain games I play might not be compatible with Windows 10 (which is stupid, but I guess I don't understand computers all that well). Plus, all the talk of bloatware and being an annoying ***** of a system does not make it sound like something I'd want...

I already have a sister and a few friends that use it, though, and my friend says his SL runs just fine on his end. Still... I'm going to try and see if I can't save myself some money for at least a little longer before being forced to move to 10.

[Seratuhlis Firanelli]

I'm having this same issue, which recently became a thing last Friday. Also on windows 7, except I've been using Firestorm since 2014 and it hasn't crashed my computer hard until now. Thought it was a virus/malware/rootkit, did a scan and it showed nothing. Thought it was a Hard Drive, RAM, or CPU issue, did scans on all of those and nothing came up. Even opened up my PC, reseated my GPU/RAM, nope. Also did a COMPLETE clean install of Firestorm, didn't work either. Setting off Shader Cache and deleting said cache from the Nvidia temp folder almost worked...for a few minutes!

 

But the strangest part is that this crash also occurs when I use the Standard SL viewer by LL...but DOESN'T hard-lock crash when I use Alchemy viewer!  Something in those viewers must be causing this problem.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Seratuhlis Firanelli

[Whirly Fizzle]

2 hours ago, Seratuhlis Firanelli said:

I'm having this same issue, which recently became a thing last Friday. Also on windows 7, except I've been using Firestorm since 2014 and it hasn't crashed my computer hard until now. Thought it was a virus/malware/rootkit, did a scan and it showed nothing. Thought it was a Hard Drive, RAM, or CPU issue, did scans on all of those and nothing came up. Even opened up my PC, reseated my GPU/RAM, nope. Also did a COMPLETE clean install of Firestorm, didn't work either. Setting off Shader Cache and deleting said cache from the Nvidia temp folder almost worked...for a few minutes!

 

But the strangest part is that this crash also occurs when I use the Standard SL viewer by LL...but DOESN'T hard-lock crash when I use Alchemy viewer!  Something in those viewers must be causing this problem.

When does the system crash happen?
Is it within a few minutes of logging in or does the time you can stay logged in vary?

What actually happens when the system crashes?
Do you get a blue screen of death?  Or does the computer just freeze solid? Or something else?

Can you find any event in the Windows event manager for the system crashes?

Do you have a file named MEMORY.DMP in C:\Windows with a creation date that corresponds to the last system crash?
If you do then this is good. If you can upload that MEMORY.DMP file somewhere, I can get a callstack of the crash - or you can do it yourself - https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Analyze-a-BSOD-Crash-Dump/

Have you checked that your system isn't overheating?
 

 

[Seratuhlis Firanelli]

With the base SL viewer, it locks up instantly. With Firestorm, it's random ( either instantly or within a few minutes of just standing or TPing somewhere). When the crash happens, it just freezes, no blue screen, client is locked, entire screen is locked, all sounds stop, can't move mouse, etc. The only way for me to exit is to turn off my surge protector. I check the windows event viewer, everything is fine save for the "the computer rebooted without cleanly shutting down" as a result of my only means of exiting.

Also my system runs at a constant 29-39c ( with either SL alchemy, base SL, or Firestorm on) and the freeze just happens with Firestorm/base SL viewer regardless of temperature. I also tested other intensive games such as Fallout 76, Monster Hunter World, and Modded Fallout 4 to see if it'll cause an issue, made my system run 30-43c but no intense lock-ups/crashes like SL/Firestorm. The viewer(s) also crash regardless of the resources I used in the back ground ( like having firefox/steam/discord all on/off at the same time.

 

Unfortunately I do not have a MEMORY.DMP, but if it does generate after I try Firestorm/SL again, I'll post it.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Ach, unfortunately it's going to be difficult to troubleshoot.

What's your system information?  You can get this from the login screen: Help -> About SecondLife/Firestorm.
Click the "Copy to clipboard" button & paste it here.

Do you happen to have a laptop with switchable graphics?  If so, if you switch over to using the onboard graphics, does that "fix" the freeze?

Have you tried a system restore back to a time before this started?

Does the computer still freeze if you run a 32bit viewer?  Try the 32bit build of Firestorm.  The LL viewer updater gets tetchy if you try to run a 32bit viewer on a 64bit system & tries to force update you to 64bit.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Whirly Fizzle

[Whirly Fizzle]

For what it's worth, I'm not having any problems with SL viewers on my Windows 7 desktop.

 

Firestorm 6.0.1 (56538) Dec 13 2018 20:35:34 (64bit) (Firestorm-Betax64) with Havok support
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (3491.95 MHz)
Memory: 16268 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 750/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 23.21.13.9135
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 391.35

RestrainedLove API: (disabled)
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.25.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.5
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 1.10.09
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Settings mode: Hybrid
Viewer Skin: Firestorm (CtrlAltStudio)
Window size: 1920x1021 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 256 m
Bandwidth: 1500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 3
Render quality: Ultra (7/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: 768 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2018-10-29T23:57:43
Built with MSVC version 1800
December 17 2018 05:33:13 SLT

My installed Windows updates:

[cykarushb]

On 12/15/2018 at 6:25 PM, bigmoe Whitfield said:

It  has problems, THEY all have problems.

Windows XP is where its at, no problems there.

[Seratuhlis Firanelli]

 

Here's a copyaste of the system info, I also run the 64 bit client

 

Firestorm 6.0.1 (56538) Dec 13 2018 20:35:34 (64bit) (Firestorm-Betax64) with Havok support
Release Notes

CPU: AMD FX(tm)-4130 Quad-Core Processor             (3817 MHz)
Memory: 8174 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 750 Ti/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 25.21.14.1735
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 417.35

RestrainedLove API: (disabled)
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.25.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.5
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 1.10.09
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: StarLight (Original Orange)
Window size: 1280x962 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 408 m
Bandwidth: 1500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 4
Render quality: High-Ultra (6/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: 1024 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2018-12-17T2:55:7
Built with MSVC version 1800
December 17 2018 16:54:13 SLT

Screens of all of my Windows 7 updates:

https://i.gyazo.com/70a4faafd95fc91ecf8eac28ebe351c2.png

https://i.gyazo.com/e682068d55eea48f3fa5a0b8e2dde0c5.png

https://i.gyazo.com/715f230fac243bcc756174f6318eed43.png

https://i.gyazo.com/60e1c1bd70a6848e3d5b5e8f1257729b.png

https://i.gyazo.com/41fb1078eac35d476f2342740eb32740.png

https://i.gyazo.com/83fe106b468c1badb5cef27027eb526c.png

https://i.gyazo.com/843cbccf6b4fa2af803acdcf04860e9c.png

https://i.gyazo.com/79659d8a8138e0cadbd8efb7395c2bd2.png

https://i.gyazo.com/aaf6daffb4f428a13733224d98dc56d2.png

https://i.gyazo.com/d4c0ff849106d0a8ef8403d08c29a3a2.png

 

EDIT: Did the crash again, no Kernel Memory dump generated in the Minidump folder :C

Edited December 18, 2018 by Seratuhlis Firanelli
more info

[Renomaki]

17 hours ago, Seratuhlis Firanelli said:

I'm having this same issue, which recently became a thing last Friday. Also on windows 7, except I've been using Firestorm since 2014 and it hasn't crashed my computer hard until now. Thought it was a virus/malware/rootkit, did a scan and it showed nothing. Thought it was a Hard Drive, RAM, or CPU issue, did scans on all of those and nothing came up. Even opened up my PC, reseated my GPU/RAM, nope. Also did a COMPLETE clean install of Firestorm, didn't work either. Setting off Shader Cache and deleting said cache from the Nvidia temp folder almost worked...for a few minutes!

 

But the strangest part is that this crash also occurs when I use the Standard SL viewer by LL...but DOESN'T hard-lock crash when I use Alchemy viewer!  Something in those viewers must be causing this problem.

I'm glad I'm not alone in this. The same thing happened to me, and I did the same course of action. Virus scan, clean installs, 32-bit version, even tried using the OFFICIAL viewer of LL, and for about 10 minutes it worked... Till it again froze up to the point of requiring a reset.

I am considering getting Windows 10 this week at this rate, since I don't know how to fix it, and I am unable to roll back my update anymore... I haven't tried playing SL for the last few days for fear of possibly doing some serious damage to my computer, since I imagine having to reset a dozen times due to freezing up not being all that good for your computer.

It does set me at ease to know that another person experienced what I had, so I know it wasn't just me.

I only hope that a new OS will allow me to return to SL without issue and allow me to get back into enjoying my humble hobby and hanging with my friends, since honestly, discord conversations just aren't as much fun compared to virtually snuggling with someone you care about and creating new avatars to show to your friends.

 

[Seratuhlis Firanelli]

I'm hoping as well that it can be fixed without moving to Windows 10, I'm refraining from doing a system restore just to see if Whirly has any hints based on the stuff I posted. Even then, there must be something messing with the LL viewer AND firestorm, because the viewer did not freeze this bad at all until last friday, and I don't intend on repeating whatever happened to make it bug out this bad.

[Seratuhlis Firanelli]

Out of curiosity I decided to do a system restore. Firestorm was borked ( as in it wouldn't boot up but it didn't crash my computer at least!). So, I completely uninstalled that, wiped the settings, wiped the registry, turn off Nvidia shader cache + delete the previous GLcache, clean install the graphics driver, installed the latest 64bit beta, put said 64bit beta in the exclusion list on Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials.

 

So far I've been sim-hopping on some resource intensive sims (Such as Remnants of Earth and popular gacha sims), and I've yet to encounter the locking crash! I'm still quite paranoid about it since Firestorm borked randomly within the next few days last week. If anything does happen that leads to the same unusable Sl/Firestorm coupled with the same locking crash, I'll post any new findings here.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Seratuhlis Firanelli
fix

[Whirly Fizzle]

Firestorm support have seen lots more cases of this reported on Windows 7 systems now & it appears to be caused by Malwarebytes.
Uninstalling Malwarebytes fixes the problem.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Bug report: FIRE-23401 - Firestorm locks up Win 7 on login - Malwarebytes

[JoJo Aurelia]

I've been crashing on it with Win 10

[DeyJaVoo Amore]

I find that Malwarebytes is my issue, as when I disable it, SL works fine. I have filed a ticket with them, and sent over the data they requested, but they do not see where malwarebytes has blocked anything. Malwarebytes did not give me a notice of any intrusion before SL & my computer froze. They are still looking into the issue. Until there is a fix, I keep Malwarebytes turned off when I log into sl... 

[Whirly Fizzle]

7 minutes ago, DeyJaVue said:

I find that Malwarebytes is my issue, as when I disable it, SL works fine. I have filed a ticket with them, and sent over the data they requested, but they do not see where malwarebytes has blocked anything. Malwarebytes did not give me a notice of any intrusion before SL & my computer froze. They are still looking into the issue. Until there is a fix, I keep Malwarebytes turned off when I log into sl... 

@DeyJaVue Just to confirm, are you also running Windows 7?

[DeyJaVoo Amore]

Yes Windows 7