sl and firestorm constantly crash this past week

[Saijito]

at first it was just when i teleported to somewhere after logging  in my character would freeze then sl would go gray then tell me I've been logged out. now it seems to crash even before teleporting somewhere else. It happens on both of my laptops. I even tried firestorm on one of my laptops and same thing happened. its weird because sl was working fine before this week. I updated sl on one of my laptops today but it still crashed not long after logging in. not sure how to report bugs, but several of my friends on sl have had similar issues as me. 

[Rolig Loon]

That behavior is usually caused by a weak or unstable Internet connection. Download speed is not relevant.  Stability is, because SL depends on being able to trade messages back and forth between your viewer and the SL servers 45 times a second. If your signal is delayed momentarily or if it loses packets of data, your viewer and the servers cannot remain in sync, so you are logged out.  You can take a look at the quality of your connection by opening the Statistics panel ( CTRL + Shift + 1 ) when you are in world.  The Ping Sim value near the top of the display should be less than 100 msec if you are in North America -- closer to 200 msec in Europe.  If it's much larger, you are likely to crash often.  The Packet Loss value, also near the top of the display, should be 0.1 or less.  

The first suspects are your router and modem.  Reset both by unplugging them from the power for a minute or so, then plug them back in and restart everything.  Check all cables and connections to be sure that the cat hasn't been chewing on them. Avoid using a wireless Internet connection if you can.  If you have been sitting too far from your router, or on the other side of a wall from it, move closer. If you still have problems. you can try adding a different DSN server to your router, or replacing the router itself.

Edited March 18, 2021 by Rolig Loon
Additional information

[animats]

A few points.

First, by "crash" do you mean "disconnected", or "program terminated with a crash". True crashes in Firestorm are very rare. The developers do a good job. About two years ago, I got one that was repeatable. So I built the viewer from source, ran it under a debugger, got a stack backtrace, and submitted a bug report. It's fixed now.

Second, the "packet loss" rate reported by the viewer includes not just packets lost by the network, but packets dropped by the viewer because it was too busy to process them. Go to a sim where your frame rate drops, and watch your packet loss rate go up. You may just need to turn down your graphics settings.

Third, if you're actually getting program crashes, it may be a memory problem on your computer. I had that once, and had to run a memory diagnostic for hours to catch it. Replaced the RAM, no more crashes. I recommend running "The Valley" as a test for your computer. The Valley is a graphics benchmark from Epic designed to fully exercise the GPU, CPU, and memory. It shows a nice valley with trees that you can explore. It looks like a game, and it's built with Unreal Engine 4 like an AAA title, but nothing ever happens; it's just a nice landscape to look at. Left to itself, it gives you a tour. If The Valley will run for an hour, your hardware should be able to run Second Life without problems.

[Chic Aeon]

41 minutes ago, animats said:

A few points.

First, by "crash" do you mean "disconnected", or "program terminated with a crash". True crashes in Firestorm are very rare. The developers do a good job. About two years ago, I got one that was repeatable. So I built the viewer from source, ran it under a debugger, got a stack backtrace, and submitted a bug report. It's fixed now.

Second, the "packet loss" rate reported by the viewer includes not just packets lost by the network, but packets dropped by the viewer because it was too busy to process them. Go to a sim where your frame rate drops, and watch your packet loss rate go up. You may just need to turn down your graphics settings.

Third, if you're actually getting program crashes, it may be a memory problem on your computer. I had that once, and had to run a memory diagnostic for hours to catch it. Replaced the RAM, no more crashes. I recommend running "The Valley" as a test for your computer. The Valley is a graphics benchmark from Epic designed to fully exercise the GPU, CPU, and memory. It shows a nice valley with trees that you can explore. It looks like a game, and it's built with Unreal Engine 4 like an AAA title, but nothing ever happens; it's just a nice landscape to look at. Left to itself, it gives you a tour. If The Valley will run for an hour, your hardware should be able to run Second Life without problems.

So where does the black screen graphics card issue fit into all this. Last week someone reported others having this same issue. I have been having it for six months now.    I can't pin down any cause really.  I can run with everything but DOF (I just don't like it for everyday use) with two avatars, go to events and cam around and do things that "should" get me a black screen and all is OK.  I have done tons of test and everything appears to be fine with the computer. And then I can just be standing still and the computer goes to black screen. Today I noticed that whenever (lately anyway) this happens it also clears my cache and my next entrance into SL has a lot of load times.   

 

Computer isn't overheating and the only other program I have had any issues on (not often) is Skylines and I am running 25 squares although few mods :D. So it is working hard there. Again, it works fine for very long periods of time and then sometimes just goes to black screen.   Other reported it taking them back to the login screen. I have to reboot my computer each time this happens. I have nothing at all I can do but that.    No clue what's going on. Would like to fix it. Have written a few time but no ideas that did any good.   Modem has been cleared a few times by power outages :D. 

 

 

[animats]

Graphics driver problem?

If you are not running Firestorm in full screen mode, does the entire screen go blank, or just Firestorm's window?

[Chic Aeon]

Well it is full sized but in a window in that I see all the menus.  Everything goes black very much like the screen being turned off. I get a message like "no signal" or something close to that.   Can't do anything including getting to the task manager. Have to turn off the computer, wait and then restart.   

 

Graphics driver is the newest available. Old card 980.   If it is a graphics driver there apparently is no fix :D.  

Edited March 19, 2021 by Chic Aeon
adding info

[animats]

11 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

Everything goes black very much like the screen being turned off.

See this discussion about the NVidia 670. Known problem.

[Chic Aeon]

3 hours ago, animats said:

See this discussion about the NVidia 670. Known problem.

That is DEFINITELY ME. Unfortunately I don't see a fix there for me on a desktop but really nice to confirm it is "their" problem.  So something  must have changed (maybe in relation to the move to the cloud as that is when it started for me) in SL as I never had this issue before.    

 

So MANY thanks on that.  I hope the others with the black screen issues see this post.  It does help to know WHY.    

[animats]

1 hour ago, Chic Aeon said:

That is DEFINITELY ME. Unfortunately I don't see a fix there for me on a desktop but really nice to confirm it is "their" problem.  So something  must have changed (maybe in relation to the move to the cloud as that is when it started for me) in SL as I never had this issue before.    

 

So MANY thanks on that.  I hope the others with the black screen issues see this post.  It does help to know WHY.    

If it's a desktop, you may be able to upgrade the power supply. Depends on the computer in which it is installed. It's a routine job any shop which fixes PCs should be able to handle.

[Chic Aeon]

Just now, animats said:

If it's a desktop, you may be able to upgrade the power supply. Depends on the computer in which it is installed. It's a routine job any shop which fixes PCs should be able to handle.

Have a new hefty power supply. I have learned my lessons with power supplies and mine are "now" all overkill LOL.   Honestly, I am just happy to have some confirmation that I haven't been crazy all this time.     I'll just live with it until something major happens or the 3070 is actually available :D.   Gotta love that supply chain thing.  I got the VERY LAST square hyacinth  woven basket in North America I think and before that all the major stores were stocking the same baskets -- like EVERYWHERE. When I got mine it had obviously been a return (packing) but was in new shape and I so didn't care at that point. 

 

Many of my favorite top quality foods from THRIVE have gone WAY downhill (not in price which has gone up). So we do what we do in the time of COVID.  I am often a patient gal. 

 

I really do appreciate your help though. I feel better about things overall.   

[Saijito]

my surface specs:

Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7300U CPU @ 2.60GHz   2.71 GHz
Installed RAM    8.00 GB
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch    Pen and touch support with 10 touch points

i also ran internet speed tests on 3 different sites. But when i do get get out of sl i get a message saying "the region may be experiencing trouble. you've been logged out of secondlife. please check your internet connection."

[Saijito]

does anyone know the ip address to lidenlabs or secondlife? i think my dad's router is blocking the address from connecting to the internet

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Saijito

[4gunny1]

@Saijito

 

• Open your Windows start menu.
• In the Search, Find, or Run window at the bottom, type CMD and hit Enter. (A command prompt window will open - note the folder it opens in)
• Type the following, following each line by hitting Enter:
  ping -n 10 login.agni.lindenlab.com > ping.txt
  tracert login.agni.lindenlab.com > trace.txt
• Wait about ten minutes for the tracert to finish, then type: exit.
• Open My Computer, navigate to the folder that the command prompt window used, and attach the files ping.txt and trace.txt to your reply.

 

I look forward to your response!

 

Best Wishes,

 

Vix Linden

Concierge Support Specialist

Linden Lab 
 

---------------> Thank you for the update! It may be related to the bug report then, but improving your home network is always a good move. Our engineers are still reviewing  data collected from prior reports so we hope to have the teleport crashing issue resolved soon - although no ETA is forthcoming yet. <--------------

 

Warm regards,

Vix Linden
Concierge Support Specialist
Linden Lab

Disconnecting issue is a well known issue by Linden Labs...

Run a tracert to tracert login.agni.lindenlab.com
Check to see if their is anything showing :  *    *    *  server timed out.
Check the NIC - Network Interface Card it should ping ms @ 1 ms.
Check the Router - More than likely not the problem.
Follow the Route - Use WhoIs and jot down the IP Address.
Check your Packet Loss as well for best results 0% packet loss.

Edited March 30, 2021 by 4gunny1