So mad I can't stand it....suggestions? (urgent-ish, please)

[Simerion]

Ok, so I downloaded Firestorm and shortly after that I started having problems with my SL.  Naturally I assumed it was Firestorm. Failing that, I thought it might be the driver upgrade I had done. I spent DAYS trying to roll back whatever had happened.No dice. I am attaching pics of the problem. In case my pics don't load, I will tell you that I am suffering with being transparent, except for attachments and sometimes completely black. First it was just me. Then it was every avatar. Now it is sky and grass as well, black as ink. First it was just Firestorm and Phoenix, now it is happening in SLV3 as well. Obviously this makes SL unusable for me. I thought it was the viewer, it happens on every one that I have tried. (*just realised I am on laptop and pics are not. Will have to add them later)

 

Here's the kicker...mentally exhausted from figuring things with no luck, I log in with my son's laptop since he was not using it. Never used it for SL before and did a clean install of SL3. He games on it nonstop with no problem. And guess what? Oh...SAME PROBLEM!! Sorry for shouting but I am just so ticked.

 

So...what could possibly be wrong with how LL sees my account that they should render me and increasingly my whole universe in inky black or invisible? Please note: Already cleared cache, restored settings to default, rolled back nvidia driver, reinstalled Viewer more than once plus a few other things I can't remember. Also tried GBoost to see if it is a resources issue, even though I have been on for months with no problems. Nope. GBoost is awesome but I am still black or invisible. Help me please or I shall have to quit second life, and that would make me sad. I will file a JIRA, but tomorrow. I am too mad to wrestle with that tonight. JIRA is hard to navigate for me. I'm not even sure what category I would file this under.

Thanks in advance. I truly love SL and you guys are always so helpful, so your input would be greatly appreciated.

[Randall Ahren]

Try Inworldz and see if everything is black. You can login to Inworldz with Singularity and Imprudence. I'm not sure if it can be done with Phoenix. If everything is normal in Inworldz, you know it's SL specific. If it's black in Inworldz, it is most likely something at your end and not Sl specific.

[Simerion]

Ok, went and created account at Inwordz but it says it cannot authenticate my account and won't let me in.

 

Edit: Never mind. I am a chump.

[Simerion]

Ok. No problem with Inworldz, this is an SL problem only. I have invested so much time and care into getting comfortable in SL. I am really hoping someone has heard of this issue before and has a suggested resolution.

[Simerion]

New development, good but I need to understand the mechanics behind it so techies feel free to discuss. As long as I have been in SL I have not used basic shaders, because my vid card is drek. In researching this issue at SL support, I came across the suggestion to disable basic shaders. This worked for that particular case. I went into my preferences to see if my basic shaders were checked somehow. Nope. So...of course, I checked it to see what would happen. Fixed everything.

 

So, two questions:

1) Why would the same problem be fixed by doing two actions in exact opposition to each other?

2) Can I assume that this will recalibrate something? Given my vid card I would really prefer not to have to run basic shaders and up until just under a week ago I did not have to. (Edit: I have determined that basic shaders must now remain checked or I go invisible and/or black again. This is not cool, as I run my SL on mostly low settings. Any workaround would be MUCH appreciated.)

[Darrius Gothly]

Depending on your video card, there may be a JIRA that relates.

For ATI Video Cards: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-13337

For nVidia Video Cards: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-12906

[Simerion]

Hi, and thanks for the link. The fact that it is mostly 2009 stuff depresses me, but I shall try not to think it even possible that my problem is related because 2 years of no fix would have me doing a runner in utter despair, lol.

That said, I don't think it is. My issue doesn't look like any of the pics in the link that you sent, since my entire avi plus every other avi fails to render correctly and is transparent or inky black. Now, like a creeping contagion, my sky and grass too. As I said, basic shading fixes it but it isn't really a fix. It's an inadequate workaround. Still hoping for someone to read this that has lived through it before and fixed it.

[Nalates Urriah]

Sorry you're having so much trouble...

When you have a tech issue like this we need to know about your system. In the viewer click Help->About and copy that information. Paste it into your OP. With that information we can provide specific help. Often we will see a problem you have been overlooking or don't know about.

nVidia Driver GTX 460 Problems - This is mostly fixed in the Shinny branch of the developement viewer. Many of the fixes are said to be in the current Snowstorm Dev Viewer. I've been using it without problems. 

One of the quick troubleshooting processes is to turn your graphics to low before logging in. Once logged in slowly take them back to the setting you normally use. If with the low settings, you have problems as soon as you login, close the viewer. Then go in and delete the settings.xml file (that name changes depending on the viewer and version you are using - but it is pretty obvious which file goes with which viewer) in C:\Users\[win_login_ID]\AppsData\Roaming\SecondLife. Start the viewer and before logging in set your graphics to LOW. If you still have a problem, let us know.

The Shinny 3-2-2-245823 is giving me some problems. The Firestorm-Release_3-2-1-24179 is working very well. But the Firestorm-Release_3-2-2-24336 gave me all sorts of video problems and it is supposed to have all the latest fixes from the Dev Viewer.

Oz posted some info in the JIRA that a specific part of the OpenGL issue had been fixed and should appear in the Beta Viewer this week or possibly next week... depending on QA.

Check this forum and SLUniverse for others using your video card. If people are having driver problems, they will be talking about it.

 

[Simerion]

Thanks for the tips. I ended up putting on my OR kit and doing a surgical scrub of my system for anything even vaguely related to SL. Then I reinstalled Firestorm and although I did meet a guy today with holes under his eye sockets, the overall issue has gone away. My problem with the fix though, is that I logged in on two completely unrelated computers and had the identical problem. So why did a clean install fix it on my computer? It shouldn't have. It's a mystery. I will add that I logged into the other computer using a fresh install of SLV3, as that laptop was never before used for SL. Makes no sense that it's fixed, but I am happy to accept that it is.....

[Simerion]

Last comment and this thread can close I think.

I thought about it. I believe that LL has their own cache, and when I did the sterilization and clean install I forced them to rebuild my account rather than to rely on prefetched stuff. (Yes, I am quite sure I just mangled a few techie ears, sorry for that). Anyway, the point is, still their fault, but clean install might be a fix for many things.

[Simerion]

Great. After all that and a brief teasing interlude of fully function Firestorm with decent FPS (for me, anyway) I am invisible again. So depressing.

[Lex Solari]

I have been having this issues for 3 weeks now and have been unable to arrive at a solution. All viewers have the problem, and frankly it is sucking the enjoyment out of my favorite pastime. Fortunately. I have the most success at log in. Often my avatar will rez correctly (or with an intial rebake) but any change of textures such as clothing or skin will send me invisible again and the only solution is to relog and hope for the best. By invisible, I mean in whole or in part, often with teeth. hair, and eyes being the only thing visble. Perhaps a month ago...i realized that the blue irises of my eyes had suddenly become brown and the whites invisible. Some fiddling at the time fixed this but i realsize now that this was probably the beginning of my issues. Loading other eyes has not helped the overall problem so I tend to think that they are not the source fo the problem.

I also have had some luck by creating a naked outfit and rezzing it when i have become invisbile. This is best done only at home though

Hoping there are some clues in my story above that would provide some tech savvy individual enough info to help nail down a solution here.