Nalates Urriah

We have had some network slow downs. No one has identified a cause. So, try the basic stuff; restart computer and gateway/modem, check you network performance (SpeedTest.net). You can test your connection to the SL Servers: http://blog.nalates.net/2011/10/26/troubleshoot-your-sl-connection/ Having a good Internet does not mean you have a good connection to the SL servers.

Debit permission gives someone the ability to take money from your account. NOT a good thing to do. For basic building with prims see: For how to put a picture (texture) on a prim see: You can Google for more tutorials. You may be able to edit the prim (picture frame). If so, open the Contents and remove all scripts. That should kill the requesting Debit Permission. Then in selection choose the Select Face and pick the face that should receive the picture and drag your image to the texture well. You may have to size it with the repeats controls.

You likely placed a purchase order to get a better price. Depending on what price you picked it could take days or weeks. You can cancel the order and your money will be placed in your SL account as US$. You can then place an instant order. I use Buy Orders to get a better price. To quickly get my L$ I scroll down and look at the pending buy orders. Today I see 21 million L$ of buy orders at L$267. Those orders may all fill today. But, if I put my order in at 267, I have to wait for those L$21 million to be filled before my order is filled, However, I can jump ahead of all those by placing an order at L$266. Currently sellers are only willing to sell at L$258. Until someone willing to sell at a lower price comes along, none of the buy orders below that price will be filled. For more information see: Misunderstanding the Second Life Lindex.

A good Internet connection does not mean you have a good connection to the SL servers. Test.

Your problem is the Intel 846 chipset. Your Pentium 4 is old enough it does not have on board graphics. New i3, i5, and i7 CPU's have HD Graphics capability built into the CPU. The minimum needed to run SL is HD2000/3000 and with the latest viewers, especially the 64-bit version, even that isn't enough. With the Pen-4 generation the 846 chip is likely on the motherboard. You are facing changing out the motherboard or adding a video card. Adding a video card is easier. You can get an NVIDIA GTX 580 on eBay for US$50 to $75. See: https://secondlife.com/my/support/system-requirements/index.php? -- They make no mention of HD Graphics now. While you have an AGP, you don't say if you have a video card attached to it. If not, updating that driver is no help. 2GB of RAM will barely run Win 7. With the viewer, that leaves like nothing for video. 8GB in 4-sticks is going for $36+/-. I suggest you look on eBay for upgrade parts. For the Pen 4 generation parts are extemelt cheap, especially memory. Your 32-bit Win-7 maxes at 3.5GB. Most people put in 4GB knowing 0.5GB can'tt be used. But, mother boards generally require memory chips to be of the same type. So, no size mixing. You can get the free CPU-Z and find your motherboard brand and model. Look up the specs and see what speed and how much RAM the board will handle. If it will handle 8GB, consider changing to Win-7 64-bit. You'll be way happier. You can get a Win-7 64 CoA for US$20 or CoA and disk for $40. Your at the point you will have to upgrade... Add up the parts and decide if you can do the work. It may be cheaper and way easier to buy a Win 10 used computer for US$200-300.

Also, make sure your inventory filter is reset.

We need way more info than you are giving us. Use your viewer's HELP->ABOUT... to collect the computer and viewer information. Paste that in with your post. Yuor first post should have answered; Is the mesh other people's mesh? Stuff you made and brought in? Can other peoppe see the same mesh? How do you know it is there if you can't see it? I'm assuming the pants are a mesh object and not an applier. Does inventory show you are wearing them? In some regions, some attachments won't attach until the region is restarted or you relog. Have you tried empty, deserted regions? Like furball... Are you able to drag the pants from inventory to the ground and see them? What do you see when you wear the pants? When you left and right click where they should be?

For whatever reason your viewer is not loading the textures needed to render the whole avatar. If you are the only one in the area that cannot see them correctly then the problem is on your side. If everyone else is seeing what your seeing, the problem is on the broken avatar's side. Such a problem is usually a connection issue. Having good Internet does not mean you are getting a good connection to the SL servers. Try this: http://blog.nalates.net/2011/10/26/troubleshoot-your-sl-connection/ Without you having posted your viewer's HELP->ABOUT... I can't tell if you have a video driver problem or not. Also, the 64-bit Linden viewer has a problem and fails to render some things. They are chasing that problem down. If you are using that, switch to another viewer.

Only third party viewers support RLV/a, as several have said. Pick a viewer from Third-Party Viewers. Of course the Restrained Love Viewer supports RLV. It also gets the RLV changes before other viewers... most of the time. Firestorm is the power users viewer of choice. It uses RLVa. The differences between RLV and RLVa are minor, scripting stuff. But, pay attention to which your viewer uses and which your collar uses. It is possible to have problems if the viewer and collar use different RLV... but it is unlikely you'll see such a problem. Most people programing for RLV/a program for the lowest common denominator.

I suggest you watch the video tutorials at Machinimatrix. They are showing how to use AvaStar to complete the tasks needed to get working Bento thngs into SL. But, you can accomplish the same tasks with plain Blender. It is just a lot more work. See: http://avastar.online/videos/

Your CPU provides HD3000 graphics. That is the problem. The HD2000/3000 graphics will work better with the 32-bit viewer. The current project Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer will have serious problems with HD3000... if it will even run. Check to see if your laptop has a dedicated video chip, NVIDA or AMD/ATI. If it does set up a game profile in the video tools to force the laptop to use that chip when running SL. By default most laptops avoid using the dedicated graohics chip to save power and only change over when they recognize a game. SL is almost never recognized. So, you have to manually enable. If you only have HD3000, you'll have weak perfoamance. You can lower your graphics settings and set your ACI limit to 100k and see if that helps.

Alwin is right. Ask the maker of the product if you have problems. Do read the included note cards before contacting the creator. Most makers wanted to be contacted via notecard. If the information is not making sense, take time to read through: https://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Second-Life-Quickstart/ta-p/1087919

Robin’s UV Maps are still usable. They work for Classic avatar, of course, and Slink. I haven’t started working with other bodies, yet. Resolution is still a problem. TGA and PNG are the primary upload formats for clarity. JPG goes fuzzy. You’ll have to experiment to see what works best. Slink recommends a 512x512 texture for nails. Depending on the design I have gotten by with 64x64. SL maxes textures out at 1024x1024. Whatever you upload, the max SL stores is 1024. Get the mesh body. Slink has added diffusion, specular, and bump maps to the body. Hands and feet are getting the same updates soon. Bento Heads are the way to go now. I still use the classic head because there have been no animation for fitted mesh heads. Bento changes that. Slink, Maiteya, Belleza, and others have kits one can obtain for making mesh clothes that fit those bodies. I’m just starting to play with those. It is being able to match the brand’s body’s weight painting that makes clothes fit well or not. AvaStar is a huge time saver. It will reduce your learning curve and eliminate a number of tedious tasks and gotchas. You can watch the free tutorials to get an idea of how it works. For actual production, you will want to take the retail tutorials they have. The problem with AvaStar is they are S L O W L Y getting the Bento tools working. They have a Beta out. I’ve been playing with it. But, it is play. I’m waiting for a final release to get serious about production. Quality Brands… this is tough. Designers are learning how to reduce render cost, ACI – Avatar Complexity Index. This is just a number used for comparison. It changes for the same outfit depending on your computer. But, it gives a relative “idea” of how hard the computer has to work to render the avatar. Lower is better. Designers are learning how to design for lower ACI. So, quality is changing for the better. That makes it hard to peg a designer as poor or good. Their series of poor releases may suddenly change for the better as they learn. Turn on ACI and try the demos to see how they compare. Bump/normal maps along with specular maps adds detail and allows polygon count reductions for lower ACI. Maitreya is the most popular body according to Mesh Body Addicts’ blog. They did some polling. I like my Slink stuff but for one that wants to make sales, I think you should probably start with Maitreya.

I don't know anyone making male clothes for female avatars. A man's sportscoat and no top can be quite sexy. So, I would go to shops selling male cothes and see how the demos fit my femine body.

Read through the pertinent parts of this: https://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Second-Life-Quickstart/ta-p/1087919

The 'Preview Grid' aka ADITI aka 'Beta Grid' is a bit tricky to get into. Once yuor viewer is set to show multiple grids (SL Linden Viewers only show Linden grids) pick the beta grid and attempt a login. It most likely will fail. File a trouble ticket. Explain you tried to log into Beta for the first time and it failed. Support will nitialize your account. In 1 or 2 working days you will be able to log in. Your inventory may not sync up until 24 hours after your first successful login. After that your inventory should sync about the next 6AM SLT after a log in on ADITI/Beta. Inventory does not sync from ADITI/Beta to AGNI/Main. Only Main to Beta.

When reporting griefing or harassment time and date are most important to the Lindens. The servers keep logs for only a few days (3? 4?). So, reporting quickly is important. If you have chat logs, include them. They are weak evidence as they can be easily faked. But, the time and date of the chat and user names provide a guide for finding the information in the server logs. Images and screen captures are helpful. Let your friends know of the problem. They can help collect evidence. However, their input doesn't carry as much weight as one is likely to expect. We have groups of vigilantes and griefers that mount group attackes on their targets. But, the information is looked at. All Abuse Reports are processed. Not all are acted on. We seldom hear what happened or what action was taken. The Lindens move slowly. Users often disagree with their decisions but, none of us have all the evidence the Lab can see.

Rolig is right. But, answers do vary. I think the best information comes from the Firestorm Viewer Developement Team. They recommend 80% of your download speed or 1,500, whichever is smaller. The viewer has changed considerably since the Max Bandwidth setting was built into the viewer. In the early days most SL information was transmitted using the UDP protocol, which was fast but had no error correction. In those days we were always dealing with corrupted cache files and you still see recommendations from the ignorant to clear cache to solve any problem. Now most of the data moved by SL servers travels via the HTTP protocol, which has error correction and is way faster than it was years ago. Data moving to and from the viewer via HTTP is NOT affected by the Max Bandwidth setting. Max Bandwidth ONLY affects the UDP pipeline. The Lab is transitioning to have all SL data for content transfer via HTTP. In the end they will only use UDP for scene updates. When an avatar moves or turns that info is sent by UDP. If a car moves, anything moves, changes color, whatever that info is sent to all those that can see it via UDP. Eventually the Max Bandwidth setting will be removed and all the network protocol and speed settings will be handled automatically by the viewer or operating system. So, unless you are having connection issues, don't mess with it.

You can use a service named: Bright Canopy. It runs SL in a web browser. So, you can use your iPhones web browser to run. There is a cost per month for the service. It is also possible to run Remote Access (names vary as there are a number of apps that do the same thing) on your Iphone to act as a terminal to your home computer. You run SL on your home computer and see it on your phone. This is sort of what Bright Canopy does, run SL on their computers and deliver it to you as an interactive web page. But, they change the UI for better control on small screens. I occasionally use remote access. It is awkward at best. You need a stylist, fingers are too big. There really is no good way to run SL on an iPhone. Android is better but, still a bit of a pain. I expect to see improved Android support in 2017 as VR and Sansar catch on. I don't see anyone developing for iPhone/iPad.

Over the weekend a number of people noticed the slow down. It has come up at a couple of Linden lead user group meetings. It seems to have passed.

Occassionally you will find yourself in a place where you cannot teleport. Generally the region is having a problem not you. You may not even be able to fly or walk out of the region. The fix for the region is a restart. Your immediate work-around is as suggested, log off then log into a different region.

Computer time is complex, ...well the way computers handle it. You need to be sure your computer is set to the correct time zone as well as the correct time and date. Computers generally use GMT and convert for your local time zone to display time and date. If the GMT part is off you can still see local time and date as correct. But, the GMT mismatch will cause problems. Once the time zone is correct and time date set, the computer should automatically check network time and keep it self sync's with it.

To give applicable answers we need to know about your computer and viewer. Get the detail we need from the viewer's HELP->ABOUT... Paste that information in your post. When all else is failing and when you and those helping have no clue, look in the viewer’s log files. The viewer has various log files you can read to get an idea of what has gone wrong. Look at the log immediately after you crash or exit the viewer. Logs are replaced the next time a viewers starts. You’ll find the logs in: C:\Users\[Win_login_ID]\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\logs\ .crashreport.log – This log is generated when the viewer crashes, the previous version of the file is overwritten. Rename this file if you plan to restart the viewer before examining the file. Otherwise, just read it with a text viewer (Notepad is good). .debug_info.log – This file is internally formatted as an XML file. I never find it of much use. It is mostly the specs of your machine. .SecondLife.log – This is the main log file. I find it the most useful. Start from the end of the file and work toward the beginning. Search for ‘WARNING’ and ‘ERROR’. With any luck the messages there will give you an idea of the problem. Recent changes have added section heading to parts of the file that can identify the general nature of the problem. There are lots of performance stats included. At the end of a non-crash log there are secession stats; Run Time, Average Packet Size, Dropped Packets, Resent Packets, etc. The file is replaced and recreated for each viewer secession. .SecondLife.error_marker – I don’t know what information is inside. I don’t have a copy to examine as I write this. The presence of the file indicates where, when, and what error happened. I think this is a disaster backup file for crash reporting in which information about the crash is retained in the event the crash handlers are destroyed before they can create the other more complete crash files. .SecondLife.start_marker – There is no information inside. The presence of the file indicates how far into the start process the viewer has gotten. Whether the file exists or not is the pertinent information. .SecondLifeCrashReport.log – This is another file internally formatted to XML. It is created when the viewer crashes. I think this is the new version of the crash log. It is mostly text. .stats.log – This is a short file containing network statistics. Similar information is in other log files. It is an easy to read set of stats that show how many packets were dropped and resent in a secession. I find the SecondLife.log is the most useful file for tuning and troubleshooting the viewer. It is verbose and reasonably easy to understand. There is a Debug Setting that allows you to increase or decrease the level of reporting.

Lexy's answer is good. Windlight is a collection of viewer settings that control how the viewer renders the environment. Those can be changed by using the viewer's Windlight controls in: Top menu->World->Environment Editor->[Water Presets|Sky Presets|Day Presets]/New Preset... These settings can be saved. When saved the viewer creates a file on your computer in the folder: C:\Users\[Win_Login_ID]\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\[days|sky|water]\ These files are collected and traded/sold. Copy such files into the appropriate folder, restart the viewer and you have new presets. Presumably, you could use the HUD you have and the viewer's Windlight controls to save your Windlight creations. See: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Windlight

Well... until people like me make tutorials. http://blog.nalates.net/2017/01/05/tutorial-2017-how-to-make-slink-nails/ Still, it is enough work many won't try.