Don Ormega

Well I have some good news. After MUCH experimentation I think I have found a workaround. First the same thing happens with Viewer 3, not change at all. However you CAN turn off the (muchly touted) HTTP transfers. First you activate the advanced menu (via prefernces or ctrl-alt-d) then near the bottom a option for develop menu. Turn that on then under develop menu uncheck HTTP inventory and HTTP textures. The bandwidth setting will now abide by what you set. For other viewers the settings is often in different locations. Check under advanced/network most of the time the HTTP settings are there. One warning though, there are some periodic spikes above the bandwidth setting even when HTTP is turned off, but they are minor/short lived and not common. If you are trying to balance your connection and want to make SURE it does not go above 600 set it to 300 or 400. Then it will never go above 600. But hey try 600 and if you have problems lower it a bit more. It is interesting that the bandwidth meter in SL stats does NOT include HTTP connections at all (probably if it did the bandwith setting would also work like it should). That stat never went above 600 or if it did very breifly. And yet my connection was getting swamped. While this works, LL may remove the abilty to turn off HTTP and still have a functioning viewer in the future so I do hope that they fix the bandwidth setting so this no longer needed. But for now, I hope it helps others that are also having this issue.

Well after more experimentation I finally (think) I have figured it out. Apparerantly adjusing the bandwidth didn't do anything. I thought it did at the time, but it must have been another factor at that moment. It would seem that LL totally ignores the bandwidth setting for most of the connections now (for the heavily touted faster HTTP system). This has a negative effect on anyone that has had the experience of having the bandwidth set too high (aka lots of packet loss). Now that LL's network ignores this, the servers try to stuff way more than what we use to get down though the line. I would rather it take a little longer to see textures than have them missing or unable to move. Actually this makes it slower since you loose packets and need to have them resent all the time. Not to mention hard to move etc. It is no wonder that people are having trouble teleporting, and/or moving around. This is a nightmare. I am surpised they even left the bandwidth setting in the viewer if they are going to totally ignore it. I thought perhaps LL's V3 might make a difference, but nope exact same results. Moving around makes the bandwidth spike in the extreme. And makes it impossible to have two people on the same connection at the same time (or at least those with less than fibre optic lines).

It is better now the past day or two. I am still testing. Also I found the computer on WIFI had the bandwidth set to 2000. Lowered that way down to 600 and it also helped (odd it should have been at 600 to begin with, I know it set to that before but perhaps something happened causing the prefs file to get dumped going back to defaults, but that would affect more settings than that....). I think it is a combination of elements coalescing to make one huge mess. I have my router locked down and encrypted but it is possible that if there are a lot of people on the same channel that interference might result. I will give it a try on a different channel. At this point it seems that everything helps a little bit. I will also contact my ISP, because it also seems that the speed on my connection is lower than it should be. Still it would seem that the heart of the matter is LL's network not working properly. At least they have improved it somewhat. Here is hoping they actually DO fix it. I do remember this happening in the past with their network (several times actually), I just don't recall a time where it affected other services at the same moment as well. Thanks to everyone for offering their insight/input.

Ok here is the situtaion and has me totally baffled. A network with two computers, one wireless, one wired. Two people on SL at the given time, one likes to use skype most of that time as well. This system has worked well for over 6 months (new router was installed then, and it worked fine for a long time previous to the new router as well). Now the problem. About 4 or 5 weeks ago we expereinced massive packet loss. Sometimes the SL statistics would say 125% packet loss (figure that one out). At first we thought it was becuase we were both in the same sim. But recently we found that is not the case as it still happens when we are in different sims. The really odd part is when the packet loss occurs it also knocks out the audio stream and or skype. Now why? they are seperate services and shouldn't be affected by packet loss on SL. Tonight a test was done when sudden massive packet loss occured (around 15-25%). One person had teleported to a different sim and the packet loss started right after landing (and was affecting audio streams AND Skype). As so left and went back to their home sim. The packet loss immediately stoped for both computers currently loged into SL. And keep in mind neither avatar was in the same sim. Two totatlly differnt sims the whole time. Whatever the problem is it starts with SL and when it happens affects everything else on our network. Not doing anything huge or unusual than before and no one is running torrents or anything like it that would suck up all the bandwidth. Just SL (on two computers), skype, and a audio stream or two. Again this has only started in the last month or so. Anyone else seeing this? It is crazy and driving me nuts trying to figure it out. When this packet loss happens it stops everything cold. Makes SL almost impossible to use, and it takes Skype with it (along with the audio streams)