Nalates Urriah

Check that your computer meets the System Requirements | Second Life. Try this site to see if you can run SL. This is not perfect, but it should give you and idea. Can I Run Second Life? When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. If the viewer will at least show the login screen, get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need. To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post. There are people running Win 8 and SL.

Both valerie Inshan's and Jonathan Sivocci's answers are good. I'll add to them. Always check the Grid Status page to see if there are known problems on-going. Do that BEFORE you start trying to fix things. The next thing to do is check your communications network. See: Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection. It is an SL specific article. The Internet is changing from IPv4 to IPv6 and hardware around the world is being replaced. So, things are constantly changing. At any moment your connection quality could change. Additionally there is a cyber war on-going between opposing idealogies, US vs Iran. China has been caught several times hacking busnesses, government sites, and sites critical of Chinese policies. ID theift is rampant. So, there is a good market for zombie computers from ID theives. Don't count on your network connection always working. Jonathan's recommendation is an excellent first step troubleshooting idea. Check grid Status next. Then look at your connection. You can also ask in the SL Forum -> Tech -> Servers whether others are having problems. Then give it a couple of hours and retry.

Good question. From talking with Lindens we now that there are plans to make another pass at improving chat. A bit over a year ago effort was made to improve the group chat system. The improvements let them take the group limit up to 42. But, as time has passed the use of chat has increased and eaten up the improvements. Basically the load chat could carry was increased. Then users increased their chat and used up the extra capacity. So, we are back to an over loaded chat system. Currently they are working on the user interface for chat. There is a project viewer for the new Chat Hub User Interface (CHUI). As best I can tell there are no 'chat system' improvements, like less lag. Apparently getting 4,000+ servers and 60k+ people divided into thousands of groups' chat communications coordinated is not the simple IRC process most of us are familiar with. Whatever the case, SL chat sucks. Is there anything the users can do? Yes. Each time you hit a chat error like cannot connect or open chat session or lag gets bad and chat text is out of order by 60 or more seconds, report it in the JIRA. Don't expect to file just one report and get anything done. You will need to report the problem each time you run into it. You will also need to get your friends to report their problems. Reports need to be explicit and contain actionable information. That means times, places, group names and good descriptions of what is happening. Include your PING, server FPS, region name and other pertinent information. Currently there are only 200+ BUG reports per month. So, if your group that is having problems starts to complain, it could make a significant impact. Don't expect to get a fix without some significant effort on the community's part. Even if you do make a major impact and the Lab changes priorities and moves chat to the top of its list, this is a complex enough problem that it will likely take some time to get a fix... think months.

Read though Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection. You should find several things that may be contributing to your problem. It should help you figure out where the problem is. We are assuming you are on a typical home connection. If that is not the case, we need to know. It would also help to know which router and ISP you are using. When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. If the viewer will at least show the login screen, get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need. To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post. While you did a good job of providing your computer specs, you did not include the driver versions and that makes a huge difference.

You can check temperature with a free program called SpeedFan. You can get System Explorer (also free) to watch how memory and page faluts are working. You will be able to see if you are suffering a memory leak or some other problem is causing your system to start swapping memory to disk, which slows things down. You did not give us the version of the SL Viewer you are using. The 3.4.3 version have a horrible memory leak. Some of the other viewers replicated the same memory leak. So, viewer version is important. You can try the Beta Viewer, which has many fixes, to see if it works better. You might also try the Development Viewer. Some of us are running the nVidia 310.90 driver. So far it seems to be working well. I've got the GTX560Ti and I'm not seeing slowing. If you are using a cloud drive, like Skydrive, that is the likely problem. SL and cloud drives are currently incompatible because of some memory process conflicts that are Microsoft-Linden Lab issues.

The Phoenix viewer support has changed, as you probably know. the Firestorm group no longer supports Phoenix Viewer. They see it as a dead viewer and dropped support Dec 31, 2012. But, there is a support group: Phoenix Viewer Self Help. I suggest you join the group, if you plan to keep using Phoenix. The Phoenix viewer will likely become completely unusuable in late February or early March. The new avatar bake process will change then. Phoenix will then no longer be able to rez avatar textures and avatars will be gray. Phonix users are changing to Firestorm, Singularity and Cool VL Viewer. Firestorm has a Phoenix mode, but it is not an exact thing, but close. Starting to change now will let you change and learn a new viewer on your terms. Once the avatar bake rolls out you won't have as much choice.

SL Viewer runs fine on Vista and Win7 & 8. So, I doubt it is a Windows related problem. Without the details of your system it is hard to speculate on the problem. Rolig is asking the questions we need to provide any help other than guesses. Fixing via guess and try can get tedious. So... When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. If the viewer will at least show the login screen, get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need. To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post. One guess is that if you are using a laptop, it may be going into power-save and turning off the graphics card. There is a place in the video card settings to change from Power-Saving to Performance. Running plugged intot he wall can switch the Laptop's graphics processor on.

I suspect you have all the UVMap polygons in a stack. This happens when the UVMap is reset. Try some new unwraps. Besure which UVMap you are using. I found it hard to control UV's in 2.49. So, you may be unwrapping to one map and looking at another. Blender 2.49 is old. The newer versions have features that really make modeling much easier. You can install an Archive version fo 2.65a and keep the 2.49 version as a working install. See Blender Install Tips for tips on installing Blender using the archive install method. I like these installs because they do not mess with my Python install. Plus my Python updates don't break my Blender install. Nor do other Blender installs break older Blender installs. I can run any version of Blender I want. Plus if I run into a bug I can install a Beta version, there are a load of them, to get around it. See: http://www.graphicall.org/ I keep 2.49 installed. But, I haven't used it for some time. The Collada export in 2.49 is too buggy. Gaia Clary of machinimatrix.org and Domino Marama and others have helped to add SL specific improvements to the Collada Export.

Read from the oldest to the newest: http://blog.nalates.net/tag/deformer/

When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. Get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need. To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post. Does this happen with all hair or just this hair?

When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. If the viewer will at least show the login screen, get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need. To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post. The XP and Win 7 operating systems have different requirements. The XP drivers may work on Win 7 or not. eBay has good video cards for cheap. As serious gamers update they sell off their old video cards. Electronics recyclers have good deals on older video cards.

You should have been checking Grid Status. It takes Grid Status some time to catch up with events. Many of us use groups to find out if it is just us or all SL users. We ask, is anyone else having problems? One of the first troubleshooting steps is figuring out where the problem is. To figure out where the problem may be read through Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection. Doing things like clearning the viewer cache and reinstalling the viewer are pertty much last resort steps. Today I ran into the same problems. My land marks stopped working. I went to the World Map. It was not working. So, is that a viewer thing or what? My next step is to go to SecondLife.com/destinations/. I find that I can even get my destination region to come up on the web page. Then I find I can't log into the web sites. They are all wacky. A computer restart and router/modem restart later I find the web and SL are still having problems. I then test my connection to a server in the Phoenix, AZ. data centre to see if it is my system or ISP. I use SpeedTest.net for that test. I loaded a couple of region servers into SpeedTest.net by looking in the Viewer's Help->About... when things were working. I can not check the connection into the or at least nearby the data center. In the past 2 years most of my login problems and tp problems have been issues on the Linden side of the connection. I have not had to reinstall a viewer in almost 3 years. I have had to clear the cache and reset the viewer settings a couple of times. A little checking can save you a load of work.

Communication is a challenge in SL. The number of people using old non-mesh capable viewers is small now, 1 or 2%. Mesh was added and announced in August 2011. I suspect that most of those using old viewers know that. Theew are only a few stagglers that for one reason or another don't know about mesh. I don't think it is reasonable to bother all those that prefer or need old viewers with notices they need to update their viewer. Nor do I think the Lab needs to spend time on such an issue when we have other more serious fixes and features that are needed. As it is they asked and found out. So, users can handle this problem and leave the Lab to work on more important problems. If you were being asked 50 times a day every day, it might be worth some effort.

My understanding is that you can get some unpredictable results if there is no UVMap. To remove materials, just delete them in the materials section. Then create or keep the material you want. Assign it to the rest of the model. If you are trying to figure out which avatar model to use see: Second Life Mesh Clothes Blender 2.6 Setup 2012 Tutorial.

Inara's article is good, but the one linked is now a bit out of date. The mesh uploader in the newer versions of the Deformer Project Viewer allow creators to use arbitrary custom shapes. To understand the advantage of custom shapes consider Inara's quote of Karl: "... The rationale there is the deformer isn’t perfect and if you start with a shape that’s closer to your end shape before you actually tweak it, you can get superior results … Even if the deformer worked perfectly, when you design a shirt with a floral print … and you put it on someone with their body weight turned all the way up … the floral print is going to be distorted … So with the new system, the artist could say, “I’m going to repaint that floral print so it doesn’t get stretched out.” lt appears this custom shapes feature, now in the project viewer, will be in the Deformer we will ultiimately get. For the status of the Deformer see: Mesh Deformer Update 2013-2

The first thing to do is file a JIRA BUG. I use a GTX560 and the 9.18.0013.1070 (or just 310.70) driver. The main viewer has been running just fine: 3-4-2-267137. However, I have had some problems with the Development version: 3-4-5-268856, but that is sort of to be expected and I haven't had long to experiment with it.. I haven't tied the newer 310.90 WHQL version. When you write about tech include information about your computer and viewer. Get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Your post as written doesn't really say much more than you are having problems. Since there aren't 30k or 40k people here screaming it would appear most people are not having problems. So... Also, Google is not showing a flood of recent SL-nVidia problem posts. The Lab has test machines and more QA people testing the viewers on various cards. So, if there were a core problem, it would likely be right in their face. It would appear that your friend and you have a local problem. You aren't really asking for help or providing much information by which we can help you. So, your post reads more like a troll's flame to slam the Lab. If you need help, try a different approach.

When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. If the viewer will at least show the login screen, get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need. To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post. The newer viewers require CPU's with SSE2. An aspect of the SL Viewer that is used to render the new freeform mesh objects and clothes requires the use of some SSE2 functions. These functions were added by Intel in 2001 with the Pentium 4. CPU's made before then cannot run the newer mesh capable viewers. You can see what your computer supports by using CPU-Z, a free program. It will tell you what level of SSE your CPU supports... or not. The only way to get the SSE support is to upgrade the computer. If you are not a computer geek, then a new computer is the easier choice. You can find cheap computers on eBay. If you are a geek or just technically oriented, you can upgrade your computer. Upgrading a pre 2001 computer may cost as much as a cheap used or refurbished computer or more. In the end you would still have an old computer with several components well aged toward their failure date. If you are into the upgrade thing, see: How To get a Faster Second Life. You can get the components you need on eBay for dirt cheap prices. I have found memory and CPU's there that come in the original, never opened, factory packaging.

There is a recent glitch in some browsers that causes the page to fail to render. It is there and working, but the browser just fails to render it. Try forcing a page reload. Try opening a second page in a new tab. Switch between the two. You may be able to get the page to render.

Your best bet is tutorials and classes in-world. See: http://blog.nalates.net/the-stuff/tutorials-index-clothes/ Builders Brewery has in-world classes for everything you might want to make.

ADITI is an odd place at times. Plus bugs in both ADITI and AGNI can make it confusing. ADITI is the QA grid and the Lindens are constantly changing things and running Beta server code. I cover the changes the Lindens tell us about in my blog. That may help you understand what is happen there and what to expect where in ADITI.

If you want to undrestand the in's and out's of the various avatar models and files see: Second Life Mesh Clothes Blender 2.6 Setup 2012 Tutorial If that works for you see: http://blog.nalates.net/the-stuff/tutorials-index-clothes/

There are a number of videos for the 2.5 & 2.6 versions of Blender. Second Life Mesh Clothes Blender 2.6 Setup 2012 Tutorial. When working with Blender one needs to know about the advantages of using the Archive install. The article links to an article on that. Updating Blender is much easier using archives. The article was updated mid 2012. So, I have links to several good videos that are current for 2.5 and 2.6. The Collada exporter in Blender has been updated several times since the 2.6x versions came out. Gaia Clary the Avastar maker and others have contributited to its improvement. You will likely have fewer import problems using the latest Blender. To find more tutorials take a look at: http://blog.nalates.net/the-stuff/tutorials-index-clothes/

The problem is complex. It comes from how the Microsoft compiler is handling memory allocation and release. There is a conflict in the memory allocation API. The Lab has been trying to eliminate it. I assume they are working with Microsoft. There has been lots of discussion in the viewer developement circles. But, as yet there is no good solution. I consider it a fix in process and I would not expect a solution any time soon.

I suggest you file a JIRA BUG report. You could provide a landmark location so we could check out what is happening. I've never seen two parcel streams on a single parcel. But, there can be other sources. If there is a television or radio nearby, it should show in the list of audio sources. If it isn't showing, there is a problem.

In mid-November some blogs began reporting on the problem. Second Life World Map Borked. Filing a JIRA BUG report helps in a number of ways. It gives the Lab a sense of how many people are annoyed enough by the problem to report it, for one. That does shift their priority for what to work on next. It also, provides some feedback on how well the JIRA is or is NOT working.