downloaded the new version and now the viewer keeps flashing on and off and is unstable

[Algernon Bamaisin]

the game continues to flash on and off as if I am blinking really fast!!!!

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Lower you graphics setting in preferences to the lowest level.  Then, little by little, increase them until you get the flicker.......then back off to the last level that did not give you the flicker.  That would be the highest setting you can use.  Updating your graphics driver might help too.

[Nalates Urriah]

Before we can give you good information we need to know something about your system, which viewer and version. If you can click Help->About you can copy/paste the needed information here. You do NOT have to login to get the info.

There are numbers of different viewer versions and it changes daily. Saying the latest version is not enough. Saying the latest main viewer, beta or some project viewer helps. We are looking for something like: Second Life 3.1.1 (242386) Oct  5 2011 08:41:40 (Second Life Development).

There are a number of thngs you can try. As suggested, before logging in turn your Preferences->Graphics to the lowest setting. With some cards high settings will prevent a login. However, once in one can turn up the settings.

Also, in Preferences->Graphics->Hardware turn off AA = Anti-aliasing. 

You can also get your graphics card make and model from Help->About. Use that information to search this forum for information on your card. You may find that you have to roll the driver back to an older version. Or upgrade to a newer version. It all depemds on the card you are using.

A few weeks ago SL ran into problems with OpenGL and newer video cards. Linden Lab is in the process of fixing the problems. Apparently it has required substantial changes. There are better versions of the viewer in progress. The main or stable version is 3.0.3 and it has some OpenGL issues depending on your video card. The beta viewer is 3.1.0 242289 Beta. You can see my Development Viewer is an even later version. Plus I have a Developer's Version that is even later than that.

Any one of these later viewers may solve your problem. The trade off is that they are not considered stable viewers and may have new bugs and regression problems (old bugs that came back). So, using them could get you in even deeper trouble. Or they may solve your problem. I was crashing every couple of hours and one of new versions solved that problem and everything seems to be working.

You can find SOME of the other viewers on the SL Download page. A link takes you into the Wiki and other version are accessible from there.