Multiple viewers & duplicated objects on reinstall

[Cam Chattoway]

I run multiple viewers, (Firestorm, Phoenix, Linden) and just ditched Phoenix for the release Firestorm - I also did a complete reinstall of Firestorm and Linden viewers only recently, and when I restarted Firestorm the first time, my inventory cache started loading duplicates in objects only...  (thank god!)

I am assuming this is just normal behavior and not a bug... but if anyone knows, I'd appreciate info on it...  (I'm assuming the Phoenix Viewer, or the Firestorm beta was replicating on the shared cache, but not sure)

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Your assumption is probably correct.  The solution is to move one of the caches to a different location on your computer.  It's a good idea to keep the caches completely separated from each other for all the viewers you might have installed on your computer.  Since it appears that the caches are already borked you will need to do a manual cache clearing by going to each viewer's cache location on your computer and deleting every file in the final folder (named "Cache).........then moving the location to somewhere else on your computer before logging in for the first time.  You can leave one in the default location but move all others.  And, I'm sure you know but it might take some time for your textures and inventory to load the first time you log in with the viewers.  You might also consider logging into one of the Linden Lab maintained sims such as Pooley or Aqua.

[Jennifer Boyle]

FWIW, I have multiple viewers installed, and UI always have a separtte cache for each and separate data files (except for chat and IM logs).  I don't know if it's truley necessary, but it intuitively seems like a good way to avaid problems.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Most people with multiple viewers and accounts don't have the problem and they do not move the caches.  But, in every instance where the problem occurs, moving the cache to separate locations on the person's computer fixes the problem.  I had the problem myself back when I used Emerald, Imprudence and the SL viewer on two accounts.  I simply did what I discribed in my earlier post and never experienced the problem again.  I don't use TPV's anymore (after the Emerald fiasco, I figured enough is enough), nor do I use different SL viewers..........one is quite enough for me so I use SL's viewer (right now that's 2.8).

[Cam Chattoway]

Appreciate the input... generated a seperate cache for Firestorm on second disk and everything seems fine, even a bit of lag loss (few FPS) - probably from not having to access the same local cache of two different viewers simultanously  on same disk (multiple avvies) - not sure if this will solve the duplication thing yet tho.. will ressurect this post if it occurs - this is on OSX 10.6 btw, probably should have mentioned that before.  Thanks 

[Nalates Urriah]

Most of the TPV's now use their own cache. Firestorm, Singularity, Dolphin, Exodus, Kirsten, Niran V, Phoenix... they all create separate caches at install... unless... you have been installing them over the top of previous installs.

Moving the cache to a drive other than the C:\ drive can give you a small performance boost. Windows uses the C:\ drive for page faults and temporary files. By moving the cache off the C:\ drive you can use more of your computer's power and avoid waiting on Windows to handle all of its disk writes.

If you are interested in reading about installing multiple viewers and some of the problems, see: Second Life Clean Install. The article is old and a bit out of date. But, we do have all the same issues and problems if we decide to run V1, 2, and 3 versions at the same time. The article was written when viewers had many incompatibilities. That is not so much the case now. The problem now comes from mixing the V1, 2, and 3's. If you use SLV 1 and 3 you most definitely should manually setup separate caches.

Caches and settings files have been handled by the TPV Dev's and we seldom have to worry about cache or settings locations if we run only the latest versions of each viewer.