SL Viewer oddities

[DolphinF]

Ok a few things.  When I come into game I am more often than not a ball of steam.  Only a few restarts fixes that problem.  The other is all avi's nearby or friends come up in list as "loading" no matter how long I am in game for.  Also every Im that comes up (and I cant initiate an IM window) says "Test String Please Ignore".  Any help appreciated.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

You're experiencing lag.  Lag is caused by many things.  A couple of the most common causes are your computer and/or it's connection to the Linden Lab servers.  The other most common cause is the sim you are located in having problems.  The first thing to try is the easiest.  Clear your cache (Me > Preferences > Setup and near the middle of the dialog box you'll see your cache location and a "reset" button.  Click "reset".  You'll get a pop-up telling you that your cache will be cleared on your next log in........click "OK" and log off SL (quit).  When you are logged off go ahead and shut down your computer and reset your modem (and router, if you have one).  Once you do that, log back into SL and be patient..........things will probably load slower after the cache was cleared.  See if your SL works better.

 

If you still have problems try clearing your cache again and logging back off.........you don't need to reset your modem/router.  When you log in again, change your log in location to another sim.  Try Pooley or Smith.  Once you get to one of those sims don't do much of anything but wait (maybe move off the landing point a few steps but don't be moving around a lot or changing clothes, etc).  Open your inventory and in the "Search" box type the letters "A", "B", "C" slowly until your counter starts showing "fetched" items.  Wait for that counter to stop completely (it might stop and start several times so be patient).  Once your inventory has loaded you can TP back home and everything should be fixed for you.

 

If neither of my suggestions work for you, then we need some computer specs from you.  An easy way to get the basic specs is to open the "Help" menu at the top of your interface, click on "About Second Life" and then copy the specs listed and paste back here.

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

Hello Dolphin. I will add just few things to Peppy's great answer. My feeling too is that you have lag. At first check if you suffer from it because you have your quality, performance and distance to high. By your preferences set your graphics and distance to low and check out if the program runs better for you. Your settings depend of many things like your graphical card, memory and internet connection. You can spend some time with these options, having visible the statistics bar (in viewer 2, Menu Advanced --> Performance Tools).

Your FPS there must to be at least 15. The Time Dilation must to be as closer as possible to 1. In sims full of people is ok to be arround 0.96. The Sim FPS and Physics FPS must to be always as closer as possible to 45, sure always over 40, even the sim is full of people. If you don't see these numbers, sure you suffer by lag.

[Luc Starsider]

Peggy's and Love's suggestions should get you up and running again, I hope.

If not, and with what you say about IM's in mind, I wonder if a complete reinstall the viewer will do the trick. After removing the program, also remove the files in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\cache and C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\SecondLife. There may be other locations to check, but, being a Mac user, I don't know where.

- Luc -