Second Life impacting internet performance

[Joey Rubanis]

Hello, everyone!

Since the start of SL's network maintenance on May 15th, 2019, I have noticed degraded performance from Second Life (Slow rezzing, avatars not loading, or popping in deformed due to their meshes loading, textures loading in slowly), and figured this was due to their network maintenance, so I've thought nothing of it, and just made the best of it for the time being.

However, it is now the 18th, Second Life's network maintenance has long since finished, and I am still experiencing slow rezzing, slow loading of avatars, textures not loading, or loading improperly, and, sometimes, difficulties moving, despite statistics telling me there's no dropped packets, or any of the sort.

On top of that, whenever I l load up Second Life, and it starts loading a region, I notice my internet slows down, too - YouTube videos start loading slowly, webpages take much longer to load than they should, and my Discord messages have a delay (and sometimes don't even send at all), and now I'm wondering if it's a problem with Second Life, or if there's something on my end that happened?

Here is what I have done to try to rectify the issue

- Increased (And decreased) max bandwidth in Second Life's settings.

- Changed graphics settings ( Even forced SL to load lower-quality textures, to no avail ), draw distance, shadows, etc, etc...

- Cleared cache manually after closing SL (This includes inventory, logs, cached textures, sounds and models)

- Reset settings to default (This includes bandwidth)

- Reinstalled viewer after clearing cache (Firestorm 6.0.2.56680)

- Rolled back Windows Updates that occurred on May 15th, 2019

- Rolled back network adapter update

- Reset computer 2 times

- Reset router/modem

- Used Second Life viewer as an alternative to Firestorm.

I could swear I have tried every solution I could think of, but for some reason, SL still seems to perform poorly, and slow down my internet. This has never happened before the maintenance period, so I have to wonder what happened. What did LL do to degrade performance? Unless they are still working on things behind the scenes in the wake of the network maintenance. If there's any tech-savy people who can help me figure out what's going on, that would be awesome!

If you need computer specs, I will post them tomorrow. for now, I have to sleep. I've been hammering at this issue all day, hoping to find a fix! Thank you all in advance for any assistance you can provide!

Edited May 18, 2019 by Joey Rubanis
Forgot to add something to the list of fixes I'd tried

[Fox Wijaya]

3 hours ago, Joey Rubanis said:

Hello, everyone!

Since the start of SL's network maintenance on May 15th, 2019, I have noticed degraded performance from Second Life (Slow rezzing, avatars not loading, or popping in deformed due to their meshes loading, textures loading in slowly), and figured this was due to their network maintenance, so I've thought nothing of it, and just made the best of it for the time being.

However, it is now the 18th, Second Life's network maintenance has long since finished, and I am still experiencing slow rezzing, slow loading of avatars, textures not loading, or loading improperly, and, sometimes, difficulties moving, despite statistics telling me there's no dropped packets, or any of the sort.

On top of that, whenever I l load up Second Life, and it starts loading a region, I notice my internet slows down, too - YouTube videos start loading slowly, webpages take much longer to load than they should, and my Discord messages have a delay (and sometimes don't even send at all), and now I'm wondering if it's a problem with Second Life, or if there's something on my end that happened?

Here is what I have done to try to rectify the issue

- Increased (And decreased) max bandwidth in Second Life's settings.

- Changed graphics settings ( Even forced SL to load lower-quality textures, to no avail ), draw distance, shadows, etc, etc...

- Cleared cache manually after closing SL (This includes inventory, logs, cached textures, sounds and models)

- Reset settings to default (This includes bandwidth)

- Reinstalled viewer after clearing cache (Firestorm 6.0.2.56680)

- Rolled back Windows Updates that occurred on May 15th, 2019

- Rolled back network adapter update

- Reset computer 2 times

- Reset router/modem

- Used Second Life viewer as an alternative to Firestorm.

I could swear I have tried every solution I could think of, but for some reason, SL still seems to perform poorly, and slow down my internet. This has never happened before the maintenance period, so I have to wonder what happened. What did LL do to degrade performance? Unless they are still working on things behind the scenes in the wake of the network maintenance. If there's any tech-savy people who can help me figure out what's going on, that would be awesome!

If you need computer specs, I will post them tomorrow. for now, I have to sleep. I've been hammering at this issue all day, hoping to find a fix! Thank you all in advance for any assistance you can provide!

i think you better check your connection before all what you did now
have a look here for some more info: http://blog.nalates.net/2011/10/26/troubleshoot-your-sl-connection/

[Joey Rubanis]

4 hours ago, Fox Wijaya said:

i think you better check your connection before all what you did now
have a look here for some more info: http://blog.nalates.net/2011/10/26/troubleshoot-your-sl-connection/

Hey, Fox!

I have just run a test on ping, packet loss, DT and PFPS in Pooley - everything seems fine with those numbers - I have a packet loss of 0.1% (It's gone down to 0.0% after rechecking), ping is under 250 ms, Time Dilation is 0.999, and PFPS is at 45.0. Yet I am still experiencing a slight slow load time in regards to some assets loading in, such as textures. Will try on a different sim, and will edit/update this post when I have more information.

 

EDIT:

Moving into SFC Atlantis (Sci-Fi con), none of the numbers have changed. Packet loss is still at 0, though ping jumps from 113 to 200 occasionally, TD and PFPS are still at .999 and 45 FPS, respectively. However, meshes are not loading, textures are loading slowly, and my internet browser is now starting to load websites slowly despite what the statistics on SL are showing. I'm wondering if Firestorm is the problem?

Edited May 18, 2019 by Joey Rubanis

[Fox Wijaya]

19 minutes ago, Joey Rubanis said:

 I'm wondering if Firestorm is the problem?

you'll get answer on that if you use another one .. perhaps download the LL viewer or/and another 3rd party viewer

[Joey Rubanis]

10 minutes ago, Fox Wijaya said:

you'll get answer on that if you use another one .. perhaps download the LL viewer or/and another 3rd party viewer

I have done that - I downloaded the Second Life viewer, as stated in my original post, but things were still loading slowly. However, trying a tertiary viewer wouldn't hurt, just to ensure all bases are covered.

 

Update: Unfortunately, it seems like the Singularity viewer is also having some issues - again, same symptoms, avatars not loading,, meshes and textures loading painfully slow, yet there is no indication of any problem using internet speed tests, or looking at Second Life's statistics. I'm officially stumped. :T

Edited May 18, 2019 by Joey Rubanis

[Whirly Fizzle]

It could be caused by your antivirus software.
https://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/antivirus_whitelisting

[Joey Rubanis]

2 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

It could be caused by your antivirus software.
https://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/antivirus_whitelisting

After uninstalling PCProtect (Because for some reason, they don't seem to have the same exclusion option as Windows Defender), it seems like Second Life loads up a lot better, without internet performance taking a hit. Odd, considering PCProtect has never messed with Firestorm's performance beforehand! Of course, this is only just me logging in immediately after uninstalling antivirus software. Wil likely reinstall it and take a crack at it again later tonight!

Though I have seen some slow loading upon walking around, it wasn't as severe as it was beforehand, so, it's a relief to know my internet isn't the source.

[Nalates Urriah]

On 5/18/2019 at 11:09 AM, Joey Rubanis said:

After uninstalling PCProtect (Because for some reason, they don't seem to have the same exclusion option as Windows Defender), it seems like Second Life loads up a lot better, without internet performance taking a hit. Odd, considering PCProtect has never messed with Firestorm's performance beforehand! Of course, this is only just me logging in immediately after uninstalling antivirus software. Wil likely reinstall it and take a crack at it again later tonight!

Though I have seen some slow loading upon walking around, it wasn't as severe as it was beforehand, so, it's a relief to know my internet isn't the source.

White-list the viewer cache in your anti-virus and Windows Defender. There are viewer folders in Local and Remote that should be white-listed. See if that solves the problem after you reinstall the AV.

[Lindal Kidd]

The last three days, my viewer loading has been really slow too.  It may not be connected, but it seems that if I open an internet browser as well as the viewer, it kicks things into motion.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

If you are on a wireless (like WiFi) connection, there could be something else around your physical location that could lower the quality of your connection. A new device in your home, a neighbor, etc.

[Lindal Kidd]

True, but we have CAT 6 ethernet throughout the house.  All the computers are hard wired to the network.