Eponymous Trenchmouth

I just fell victim to the same bug. I tried different viewers and different alts, getting the same cryptic message: unable to connect to simulator. Logging in to different sims didn't work. I was wearing my own group tag. Then I read this thread and tried Medhue Simoni's suggestion: Just Navigate to C:\Users\owner\AppData\Roaming and Delete the whole Secondlife folder. It took a while to boot up, and then it was like loading second life for the very first time. Phew!

This effect occurs in the LL viewer whether Ambient Occlusion is checked or not. Ditto Lighting and Shadows.

I recently updated my old Phoenix 1185 viewer to the latest 1600 viewer, and I immediately noticed that my shoes looked "lumpy". Further investigation revealed that when they updated the viewer, highlights and shadows were added to curved surfaces. This is a subtle effect that only shows up under the following circumstances: the object must be white or light colored, and it must be perpendicular to the light source. A vertical stack of discs viewed under noon daytime lighting will not be affected because the light is directly overhead. Look at the image below and you will see what I mean. The loaf-shaped object consists of 10 slices (like the blue highlighted slice). The lower rectangular half of the object appears as a single monolithic object. But the upper half which consists of a series of half discs, has unwanted highlights and shadows, which prevent the object being seen as a single monolithic object. This image was taken with the LL 3.2.8 viewer and is identical to the Phoenix 1600 viewer. The same object viewed in the Phoenix 1.5.2.1185 viewer (see below) appears as a single monolithic shape and it's impossible to discern the individual component prims. This is the way the early LL viewers treated curved surfaces. I've filed a ticket with Phoenix (PHOE-3919), and with Linden Labs (VWR-28603). If you've been affected by this lighting "enhancement", please let Phoenix and LL know about it. The more people complain, the sooner it will get fixed.