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Crashing Every Five Minutes


Prokofy Neva
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Yes, uninstalled the latest viewer that others say has problems.

Yes, put in another SL viewer, the "quick graphics" version. Since THAT could be a mess, too may try uninstalling that and going to Bento next (?!)

Yes, absolutely clean install, everything removed.

Yes, drivers are up to date.

Yes, cleared cache.

Yes, unchecked "Advanced Lighting" -- I saw this caused stalls and crashes before.

Yes, unchecked even "Atmospheric Shaders," and yes, not the first time I have had to live in soup in SL.

Yes, deleted that "settings" file and forced it to regenerate, the old trick that used to work and doesn't any more.

Yes, unchecked HTML textures -- that was a reason for crashing last year -- now unchecking it might be the source of problems, who knows.

No, I don't do third-party viewers.

 

Update: So before I get to Bento (sigh) I am trying "Maintenance Viewer" since "Quick Graphics" along with "Release Candidate" they have up now is crashing me.

 

Further Update: I tried deleting a purchased scripted item that was giving a lot of strange errors, maybe that's causing the crashing, deleted and cleared trash. Still crashing.

It seems to me that most often when I crash, my avatar is trying to turn around, whirling around or turning sharper seems to be causing the crashes.

Still Further Update: Did some of these suggestions:

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Using-Second-Life-with-a-firewall/ta-p/1304539

 

o Disabled McAfee completely (can't get rid of it entirely, it's welded into the Acer computer) but since I prefer AVG I disabled it

o Added Second Life to the white list on the Windows Firewall, which is managed by AVG anyway and that never caused problems before with SL but just in case

 EVEN MORE: So sure, I have done all those old wives' tales like RenderVolumeLODFactor at 4 and MeshMaxConcurrentRequests at 100 but those higher settings may be making the graphics card spit up, who knows. If I manage to stay on for more than 10 minutes, there is the chronic flashing texture problem with elongated mesh tails flashing out, etc. etc. and purple triangles. Yes, girls, I've cleared cache and yes, guys, I've done a clean restall.

Also moved up and down cache and bandwidth and tried different things...

Could it be the software? Heaven forfend...

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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.

Most of these files are erased when the viewer starts. If you plan to send the files in with a trouble ticket or bug report, place copies in another folder before starting the viewer.

Marker files are temporary and may or may not exist at any given time.

Entries in the files associated with errors and warnings are labeled as such. That makes them easy to find by searching. Warning entries are common and do NOT necessarily mean there is a problem. Some warnings are a part of normal operation. Some errors are trivial and do not indicate a ‘noticeable’ problem in the viewer’s operation.

=========

When you ask a tech question include the info from the viewer's HELP->ABOUT... This gives us information about your viewer and computer that helps.

=========

When the avatar turns it starts a major updating process. As new area comes into view, the viewer is updating the Interest List (list of tings you can see), it is requiring items from the servers that are being added to the interst list for render, and dropping stuuf passing out of view. There are downloads and decrypting of the new stuff... If you are watching the viewer stats you'll typically see the work load increase as you turn.

As these things are happening memory use goes up, both RAM and Video RAM. So, run a hardware memory test and eliminate that. See Google for instructions.

=========

Your didn't say you updated your computer's drivers. Video drivers tend to be the cause of crashes. If you include the HELP->ABOUT... we would know if you have a driver problem.

Have you moved to a different region? Could there be a video crasher toy in the region?

Are you running Chrome or Firefox along with the viewer? If so restart the computer and try running just the viewer.

Have you tested with a third party viewer? If Firestorm or Cool VL crash too... then there is no need to try Bento. It isn't the viewer, its the computer.

========

Hopefully this gives you some things to try and places to look for clues.

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Nalates, I appreciate you want to help, but I did update graphics drivers. They don't need updating. They aren't even listed on the list and maybe they don't meet the requirements but *only last week* Second Life worked. It's only problem for weeks on end was being unable to log off easily. But crashing was never an issue.

And I said which versions of the viewers I was using - the current one, then a series of others. I think you didn't read through my post.

Now it is crashing. So you have to be curious *about the software itself* and what it is doing, and not just keep endlessly trying to do even more nerdy and wonky things to look at the user's computer. For example gathering system performance requirements is a wonky chore which even requires joining some MSFT group for Windows. I can't do this now and I see now reason why I should.

Again, if Second Life worked last week, and the weeks and months before, on this very same computer, then when all of a sudden it doesn't, you simply have to become curious about the software's own issues.

Those files have been sent to Lindens in the past and a DXDIAG has been sent to them now in a ticket which of course I have put in. In my experience with the last 3 tickets with different issues (like the curious one where you can't log off, and finally after endless X-ing of the window you get the "end process" message and the "Windows is searching for a solution..."), I get meaningless answers like "do a clean install" or "clear cash". Or I get "Work in Progress" lasting 7 days until I give up and close the ticket.

I pointed out on another thread that the "can't log off" issue could be a stuck crash log reporter and its forcing itself on you- so I actually had a Linden walk me through the steps to *turning that puppy off*. Can you imagine? And so many of you said "that's not the issue". And it worked for awhile, then stopped on the next patch.

Let me add a few more things done:

1) there's a new patch -- that was forced - I took it in order to log in --- the crashing is now far worse. I'm not trying the release candidate.

2) somebody said oh, move your cache up to 1000 or 1500 and your bandwidth accordingly. I did that. That may be bad for the machine, who knows, that may crash it worse. Put it back down as it didn't stop crashing and crashing was worse.

3) I definitely don't like third-party viewers but just to test the very issue you mentioned I downloaded Singularity, which is among the least offensive although the RLV is not something I support at all, and no, it doesn't crash at all. I don't like this viewer because it's just inconvenient not to have everything as you are used to, but say, it doesn't crash, HOW ABOUT THAT.  Could it be NOT my computer but LL's software?

4) No, of course Opera, my viewer of choice for the Internet, is closed.

 

5) To satisfy your request, I'll give you the "about SL". But again, I'll urge you not to fuss about graphic cards that don't seem on spec or things like packet loss because *it worked last week*. 

 

Second Life 4.0.4 (314579) Apr 26 2016 17:54:49 (Second Life Release)
Release Notes

You are at 123.4, 166.7, 26.9 in Uber located at sim10044.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.48.54:13015)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Uber/123/167/27
(global coordinates 277,115.0, 280,743.0, 26.9)
Second Life Server 16.03.31.313341
Retrieving...

CPU: Intel® Core i5-3230M CPU @ 2.60GHz (2594.11 MHz)
Memory: 8073 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit (Build 9200)
Graphics Card Vendor: Intel
Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 4000

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.17.0010.2867
OpenGL Version: 4.0.0 - Build 9.17.10.2867

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.47.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1h zlib/1.2.8
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.2
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.31
LLCEFLib/CEF Version: 1.5.3-(CEF-WIN-3.2526.1347-32)
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.6.0017.22050

Built with MSVC version 1800
Packets Lost: 154/47,820 (0.3%)

 

 

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What actually happens when the viewer crashes?

Does the viewer just poof & close to desktop?

Or do you get a message similar to "You have been disconnected from Second Life. View IM/Quit" ? This is a disconnect rather then a crash. Though a disconnect will happen if the viewer freezes for too long so is not always caused by connection issues.

I can take a good guess at why you will be very crashy from your system information.

You are using Windows 8 (OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit (Build 9200)) rather then Windows 8.1.

SL viewers are terribly unstable on Windows 8 compared to Windows 8.1 - the crash rate is pretty much doubled.

First thing I would do is update to Windows 8.1 - see http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/update-from-windows-8-tutorial

You have Intel® HD 4000 graphics with driver version 9.17.0010.2867.

This driver version is pretty out of date (from 2012!) & it's one of the Intel drivers that has a known memory leak - a severe one. If the viewer runs out of memory, it will crash.

If that's the cause then updating your graphics driver will fix it.

You can use the Intel Driver Update Utility to update your graphics driver: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect

or update the graphics driver directly from HERE.

 

 

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It *doesn't matter* if the driver is out of date because *Second Life worked last week and many weeks before that and doens't know*.

Sure, some little thing they changed in their latest patches tipped it over the edge but it shouldn't do that without notices on their website that their system requirements have changed. And we never, ever get that. I've been buying computers for 12 years and struggling with making SL work with my phone company, and it's never ever LL, it's always the customer and their computer that's to blame, no matter what phone service or computer brand you use. Funny, that.

And here's the problem, for people like me who don't build their computers from scratch using parts from New Egg.

My Acer computer purchased from Best Buy DOES NOT LET YOU UPDATE THE DRIVER AUTOMATICALLY. (It also doesn't let you update to Windows 8.1 without endless loops either.)

It's a customized Intell HD 4000 card that you can't use pages like that to update. Believe me, I'm not stupid and I've already been to them multiple times before because derp, the first thing you do try is to try to update drivers.

If you go to the device driver pages on your own system, it says the driver doesn't need updating. 

If you go to the Intel page, it says "you have a customized driver that cannot be updated from this page". It simply won't let you download it and do it automatically.

If you hunt around you discover sure, you can uninstall the customized driver, and download the generic updated driver, but it gives you all kinds of warning signs that your computer may not work, it may so change things that other functions are destroyed. And sorry, I can't do that as I need this computer for work, and I don't have 2 or 3 others on workbenches to tinker with as geeks do.

When I try using the Oculus Rift viewer, it has a message saying "you may have to update your driver" and takes you to a page -- it's all these same pages I've already discovered, and you've already linked to (some of them) which ultimately tell you DON'T RISK DOING THIS. 

So it's the sort of thing I'd have to take it to a repair shop and struggle with trying different things and run up a bill of hundreds of dollars -- in which case you begin to say, oh, why don't I just get a new computer -- and this is how the industry keeps you impoverished.

Meanwhile, why doesn't Singularity crash, could you remain curious about that and realize *this is about Linden Lab's software, not my machine."

It's simply this: Singularity automatically does something to lower your graphics demand first, informs you of that, and then logs you on and then you don't crash.

Now, derp, I already dumb down all my settings -- that's the first step always done with crashing problems.  I take off advanced lighting, shaders, draw distaince, etc.  -- I truly don't mind if I'm in a diminished SL that doesn't enable glimpses of 512 meters and perfectly rendering avatars who aren't jelly babies.

So I don't know what *other thing* Singularity is "undoing" or "dumbing down" that makes it "just work" but it does. I look at my settings in preferences and I just can't see what they've done because I've done that myself. So there's something invisible or something I'm not getting.

PS As people sometimes don't believe you or think you're incompetent downloading and viewing driver helpers, here's the message attached. If you go to your computer manufacturer page, in my case Acer, if your computer is out of warranty already (mine is) you can get nowhere -- if you call their generic CS number you will be told that you can't do that and aren't meant to do that. Anothe option is a paid online Acer troubleshooting site but the meter is running.

Rolling back driver versions on the device driver page is normally a solution for a fear like this. But when you have to UNINSTALL and then install SOMETHING ELSE I'm not sure device rollback will work. Then systemrestore might work. But not sure and it seems it carries a certain risk.

 



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Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

Meanwhile, why doesn't Singularity crash, could you remain curious about that and realize *this is about Linden Lab's software, not my machine."

It's simply this: Singularity automatically does something to lower your graphics demand first, informs you of that, and then logs you on and then you don't crash.

Now, derp, I already dumb down all my settings -- that's the first step always done with crashing problems.  I take off advanced lighting, shaders, draw distaince, etc.  -- I truly don't mind if I'm in a diminished SL that doesn't enable glimpses of 512 meters and perfectly rendering avatars who aren't jelly babies.

So I don't know what *other thing* Singularity is "undoing" or "dumbing down" that makes it "just work" but it does. I look at my settings in preferences and I just can't see what they've done because I've done that myself. So there's something invisible or something I'm not getting.
 

The Singularity Viewer was last updated Feb 27, 2015. Note: 2015 Whatever change in the current linden viewers may make you crash, it won't be in that Singularity viewer.

I did crash a lot with the first few versions of the Linden viewer with the CEF code (version 4.0 and up). I just installed the last pre CEF viewer until that problem was resolved. (hint : --channel)

Besides that, all we can do is giving suggestions what you "could" do, to keep you in the game.

If you want only Linden employees to reply to your post, or just people who will say, yes, it's the evil linden software which is making you crash, and they doing it on purpose, maybe you should make that clear in the OP.

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Ok so you do have locked OEM drivers which can only be updated from Acer. If Acer hasn't updated their drivers for your system then yes, you are stuck without jumping through some hoops.

The only way to know exactly why you are crashing on the LL viewer is to get your viewer logs. We need to know why you are crashing to help fix it.

File a JIRA issue , run a session where you reproduce the crash and then before relaunching the viewer, zip up the logs folder & attach it to the JIRA issue using More Actions -> Attach files.

To find your logs folder:

Make sure hidden files & folders are set to show in Windows 8 - see https://kb.wisc.edu/page.php?id=27479

Browse to C:\Users\[uSERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife

Inside the SecondLife folder, you'll see a folder named Logs.

Zip up the whole logs folder and attach it to your JIRA issue.

 

One other guess what may be causing the crashes before seeing your logs - do you happen to be using Webroot antivirus software?

Webroot isn't compatible with Http Pipelining used in the viewer & you will suffer frequent crashes. Singularity doesn't have the Http Pipelining feature & will not be affected.

 

 

 

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

 EVEN MORE: So sure, I have done all those old wives' tales like RenderVolumeLODFactor at 4 and MeshMaxConcurrentRequests at 100 but those higher settings may be making the graphics card spit up, who knows. If I manage to stay on for more than 10 minutes, there is the chronic flashing texture problem with elongated mesh tails flashing out, etc. etc. and purple triangles. Yes, girls, I've cleared cache and yes, guys, I've done a clean restall.


Are you still running these settings? Fortunately MeshMaxConcurrentRequests has been ignored for - is it years already? - so setting it that high (a terrible idea based on a misunderstanding) shouldn't be a problem, but having RenderVolumeLODFactor at 4 will use more system memory than the viewer is designed for and it will run out of memory quickly. Combined with your dodgy OS and video drivers, you're probably running out of system memory in crowded places (like Uber.) You may be using the 64 bit version of Singularity which can soak up more leaking memory without crashing.

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@arton Rotaru It's not about "declaring LL evil," that's silly. It's about making Lindens and their fanboyz feel greater responsibility for customer care, customer information, and their software misadventures instead of defauling to a blame-the-customer's-machine excuse every time. And it's about documenting relentlessly my own crashing here so that people can see at the end of the day *it's not about my machine*.

What's hilarious is that my "game" is now working. First, I forced the update to Windows 8.1 as was advised above, you never know. This took hours because it is very hard to get Windows 7 and 8 out of their loops to do anything but it was finally achieved. This may or may not be key, I have no idea. Frankly, I'm finding it hard to believe that an upgrade to Windows 8.1 made graphics issues in SL subside but it may be an overall memory leak issue or who knows. What's relevant here is that it took quite awhile to ferret out of the forums gurus that helpful suggestion -- because of the hatred and animosity towards "Windoze" that so many geeks in SL feel. It's subjective and not relevant to the rest of us.

Next, I simply went back to the Linden Oculus Rift viewer. Perhaps it has more attention to graphics things. Perhaps more work went into it because of all the focus on VRs now. Who knows. It crashed before; now it doesn't. I even left "Advanced Lighting" on as it was not crashing WITH it on, so why tempt fate. Now turning around, zooming, photographing, TPing is not causing crashes. Who knows why? And yet on the regular current LL viewer, there are still crashes. I have no idea what is different between the two. So I will stick with Oculus Rift viewer because IT WORKS although sadly "notifications" isn't part of its repertoire which I liked.

Singularity also continues to work without crashes. @Theresa Tennyson If it wasn't updated since 2015, and that helps it to work, GOOD! I don't need my little avatar fingers to bend with skeletal underpinnings, I don't need shadows by my little avatar feet, I just need the basics to wait on my customers and pursue my little projects, you know? I'm not running NASA here, just trying to get a piece of software to run like all the other pieces do on my machine without this much fuss.

@Whirly Fizzle Note that I was already told to look at crash logs and did. There are numerous warnings that in fact I've seen before that don't stop it from running. They may or may not be relevant. I've sent crash logs before to the Lindens and can send them yet again because, yes, I know where to find them and zip them but I've never really seen them take an interest in them. I can send them again. I'm banned from the JIRA so I won't be posting there, and even if I weren't, I wouldn't, it's useless especially nowadays.

@Theresa Tennyson Didn't you notice that I wrote *those old wives' tales* about all that RenderVolume gunk? That should let you know that I fully realize they are irrelevant and in fact part of the silly know-it-all lore that even some merchants and creators impose on you STILL in notecards, even though they are incorrect and don't work. They revert to the original settings on all my reinstallations anyway so they aren't relevant to this discussion.

My OS and drivers are not "dodgy," my good woman. They are normal, American, Best- Buy drivers and OS that millions of Americans -- and foreigners too -- are happy to have because everything but SL works on them, you know? I realize Windows-hate is high among the Linux and Mac set over-represented in Sl, but for the norms like me, this is irrelevant. As it happened, upgrading to Windows 8.1, which was easy enough, MAY have fixed things.

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

My OS and drivers are not "dodgy," my good woman. They are normal, American, Best- Buy drivers and OS that millions of Americans -- and foreigners too -- are happy to have because everything but SL works on them, you know? I realize Windows-hate is high among the Linux and Mac set over-represented in Sl, but for the norms like me, this is irrelevant. As it happened, upgrading to Windows 8.1, which was easy enough, MAY have fixed things.

You used to own a Chevy Vega, didn't you?

If your video card drivers are proprietary and have been orphaned by the maker? Dodgy. If your OS is an initial release that you never applied the free incremental update to? Dodgy.

On second thought, it was probably an Aspen you drove. You're clearly a Dodge man.

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

[...] Next, I simply went back to the Linden Oculus Rift viewer. Perhaps it has more attention to graphics things. Perhaps more work went into it because of all the focus on VRs now. Who knows. It crashed before; now it doesn't. I even left "Advanced Lighting" on as it was not crashing WITH it on, so why tempt fate. Now turning around, zooming, photographing, TPing is not causing crashes. Who knows why? And yet on the regular current LL viewer, there are still crashes. I have no idea what is different between the two. So I will stick with Oculus Rift viewer because IT WORKS although sadly "notifications" isn't part of its repertoire which I liked.

Singularity also continues to work without crashes. @Theresa Tennyson If it wasn't updated since 2015, and that helps it to work, GOOD! [...]

It may be relevant that the Oculus Rift viewer is vintage October 2014.

The possible concern: more recent viewers may share a code change that triggers crashes on your machine, and that could be a time bomb: eventually those changes may get picked up by all viewers, and then it would be necessary to figure out what's really going wrong here.

(What changed recently? Could it be CEF? No, I'm not going down this rabbit hole.)

But maybe before then the whole machine will be retired for some unrelated reason.

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

 Frankly, I'm finding it hard to believe that an upgrade to Windows 8.1 made graphics issues in SL subside but it may be an overall memory leak issue or who knows.


Glad the crashes have stopped for now.

I'm curious to know if the Windows 8.1 update also forced a driver update for your Intel graphics too.

Can you go to Help -> About Second Life again & paste your system information to show the current driver version.

I also had the same worry as Qie - the Occulus viewer is really outdated now.

If you install the current release viewer from https://secondlife.com/support/downloads/ do the crashes come back?

You can install the current release to a seperate folder so you can keep the Occulus viewer in use too.

The Occulus viewer will be getting an update fairly soon & will be merged up with default release, so it's better to check the crashes are also fixed on default release now.

If you do still crash on default release, if you can plop your zipped up logs folder onto Google drive or Dropbox or similar, I can take a look at your crashes.

 

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Qie Niangao wrote:


Prokofy Neva wrote:

 

[...] Next, I simply went back to the Linden Oculus Rift viewer. Perhaps it has more attention to graphics things. Perhaps more work went into it because of all the focus on VRs now. Who knows. It crashed before; now it doesn't. I even left "Advanced Lighting" on as it was not crashing WITH it on, so why tempt fate. Now turning around, zooming, photographing, TPing is not causing crashes. Who knows why? And yet on the regular current LL viewer, there are still crashes. I have no idea what is different between the two. So I will stick with Oculus Rift viewer because IT WORKS although sadly "notifications" isn't part of its repertoire which I liked.

Singularity also continues to work without crashes. @Theresa Tennyson If it wasn't updated since 2015, and that helps it to work, GOOD! [...]

It may be relevant that the Oculus Rift viewer is vintage October
2014
.

The possible concern: more recent viewers may share a code change that triggers crashes on your machine, and that could be a time bomb: eventually those changes may get picked up by all viewers, and then it would be necessary to figure out what's really going wrong here.

(What changed recently? Could it be CEF? No, I'm not going down this rabbit hole.)

But maybe before then the whole machine will be retired for some unrelated reason.

It sounds like Prokofy started crashing with the 4.0.3 viewer which uses the new HTTP coroutine systems - note that he previously had crash problems with HTTP textures. Singularity wouldn't have those changes, nor would the Rift viewer.

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@Theresa Tennyson I don't drive and don't own a car. You do realize how silly this sounds, right? Telling people their machines that play everything under the sun and are perfectly normal are "dodgy". With Windows, I never upgrade automatically to the next level, ever. Every single Windows update is always derided by legions of geeks as horrible so I don't do it unless absolutely required. And evidently it was because once I had a *fact-based* suggestion to try 8.1 as *a solution to SL problems* I had no problem with trying it, crossing my fingers it wouldn't bring back the paste bug which is the bane of my life on Windows. But I like Windows so much more than Mac that it's not even a contest.

It's like Stockholm hostage syndrome or something, people are so geared to thinking that everything else must be wrong except the latest patch, and the job of forums-dwellers is to "set everybody straight" on how their machine is wrong, that they just forget to be *scientifically curious* about the LL software itself.

I would hardly say a video card is "orphaned" by a maker -- it is still listed as working and -- guess what, it still works on everything else! And guess what more! It's BACK to working with Oculus Rift viewer. Who knew, go know.

 

 

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

@Theresa Tennyson I don't drive and don't own a car. You do realize how silly this sounds, right? Telling people their machines that play everything under the sun and are perfectly normal are "dodgy". With Windows, I never upgrade automatically to the next level, ever. Every single Windows update is always derided by legions of geeks as horrible so I don't do it unless absolutely required. And evidently it was because once I had a *fact-based* suggestion to try 8.1 as *a solution to SL problems* I had no problem with trying it, crossing my fingers it wouldn't bring back the paste bug which is the bane of my life on Windows. But I like Windows so much more than Mac that it's not even a contest.

It's like Stockholm hostage syndrome or something, people are so geared to thinking that everything else must be wrong except the latest patch, and the job of forums-dwellers is to "set everybody straight" on how their machine is wrong, that they just forget to be *scientifically curious* about the LL software itself.

I would hardly say a video card is "orphaned" by a maker -- it is still listed as working and -- guess what, it still works on everything else! And guess what more! It's BACK to working with Oculus Rift viewer. Who knew, go know.

 

 

First of all, with that hardware I seriously doubt you're running "everything under the sun." In fact, I doubt you're running many graphically-intensive applications at all.

"Not installing the latest upgrade?" Microsoft discontinued Windows 8 for 8.1 years ago. You can't buy it anymore. It was generally considered a hot mess. I bought a new install of Windows 7 years after Windows 8 was discontinued. Windows 8.1 is new and therefore suspicious only on a timescale that goes back to the Devonian period.

"Perfectly normal"? Unlike most people running your CPU and video who can download drivers at will from the people who designed the thing, you're at the mercy of a group of Taiwanese resellers who left their users out on an island. Perhaps it's revenge for 1949.

 

 

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Hi, no it didn't force a driver update, it's still that same one from Intel 4000, I checked with their driver update thing.

 

I didn't realize Occulus was outdated, I would have thought it was the ne plus ultra of viewers as the Lindens are so preoccupied with the subject of VR now.

Yes, no doubt Occulus will be updated as you say and these issues related to how textures are handled or whatever it is will cause crashes again. Perhaps by then I will be able to buy a new computer/add a new graphics card/whatever as I have had to do in the past.

But PS -- why do the Lindens have this new change anyway? What does it accomplish? What is its purpose? Does it work as advertised?

 

Second Life 3.7.18 (295296) Oct 8 2014 19:25:50 (Second Life Project OculusRift)
Release Notes

You are at 204.0, 71.6, 53.1 in Sutherland located at sim10162.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.49.28:13003)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sutherland/204/72/53
(global coordinates 262,092.0, 254,280.0, 53.1)
Second Life RC BlueSteel 16.04.21.314319
Retrieving...

CPU: Intel® Core i5-3230M CPU @ 2.60GHz (2594.09 MHz)
Memory: 8073 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit (Build 9600)
Graphics Card Vendor: Intel
Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 4000

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 10.18.0010.4276
OpenGL Version: 4.0.0 - Build 10.18.10.4276

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.37.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1h zlib/1.2.8
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.0
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.31
Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded)
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Built with MSVC version 1600
Packets Lost: 199/33,949 (0.6%)

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@Theresa Tennyson your snarky remarks are exactly why few people brave the Technical forums to actually try to get to the bottom of problems with the Second Life software.

There's no curiosity or scientific approach or willingness to gather data impartially, as you would expect with people who are *scientists* i.e. computer programming is a science, correct? Or is it only a trade like car repairman? I think really the latter.

Instead of the scientific and impartial approach, we get this snarky, nasty, snarling invective -- the user is always wrong, worse, he's bought some completely Neanderthal computer or he's in the Dark Ages because...he has the basic computer you could buy NEW LAST YEAR from Best Buy and not-Windows-10 which geeks themselves warn strenuously against (!).

I was thinking this computer was 3 years old -- it feels like and it gets a real workout every day -- but my son reminded me that it is actually less than 2 years old. And that's just it -- running Second Life is a proposition where the makers tell you that you must buy a new computer or at least a $400 graphics card that you must install yourself or pay $100 to install.

Imagine, the crime of irrelevance and backwardness *gasp*, not to have gone from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 - and this from Linux box users or Mac users who hate Windows.

The reason these Taiwanese (what, I'm supposed to buy Lenovo?!) lock up the driver is so that the machine continues to play as they constructed it instead of falling to the mercy of every geek who images inserting alien graphic cards into situations where they burn up the mother board or cause other problems. And that's fine, I don't have a problem with that, as I've had SL burn out my motherboard from an alien graphics card and I've also had another time when ultimately it just didn't work and caused other problems.

Yes, everything under the sun that wonky nerds do not need who are in the masses in the norms population -- YouTube, Netflix, WoW, Facebook, Slack, etc. 

Most people don't need to build Unity worlds on weekends or during their 1/5 free time from their Google or IBM job.

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

Hi, no it didn't force a driver update, it's still that same one from Intel 4000, I checked with their driver update thing.


Your driver HAS been updated - to a version without the memory leak so I'm actually hopeful the crashes will be gone now, even on the latest default release viewer.

Before updating, your system info was:

OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit (Build 9200)

Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 4000

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.17.0010.2867 <---- driver release date: 10/10/2012

OpenGL Version: 4.0.0 - Build 9.17.10.2867

After the update to Windows 8.1:

OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit (Build 9600)

Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 4000

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 10.18.0010.4276   <----  driver release date: 21/09/2015

OpenGL Version: 4.0.0 - Build 10.18.10.4276

 

The graphics driver you have now is only one release behind the latest version and it should be just fine.

Has the long hang when logging out also gone away?

I suspect the driver update may have helped this too. When the viewer is logging out, it saves the screen_last.bmp (image of what's on screen when you quit the viewer) to disk & it also compresses & saves your updated inventory cache, Both of those things need free memory to complete, which you will have been short of when using that old leaky driver version.

 

 

 

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Why all the completely unrelated geek, Linux, Mac, Windows talk? Nobody in this thread has ever lost a word in regards to operating systems. I'm pretty sure anybody who replied in this thread is on one or the other windows system (even Qie, I think). The only thing that has been pointed out is that Win 8.0 can have certain problems which 8.1 won't have. And you took that advise serious enough to actually upgrade your machine.

It's also pretty obvious why people asking for your system specs. You claimed you have up to date video drivers, when you actually ran a driver from 2012. (Why a 2 year old machine has a driver from 2012 installed, in the first place, is beyond me actually.)

You got the information about the driver wrong a second time, as Whirly just pointed out. Hence people asking for the specs, to rule out such misinformation.

It really doesn't matter if you claim that you were on the latest driver provided for your notebook. You simply did not meet the minimum system requirements for Second Life. Which clearly states, "requires latest drivers". Maybe they should change this to "requires latest drivers, or what Prokofy Nevas PC manufacturer considers is the latest driver"?
Or should they stop development until Prokofy Neva gives an all clear that she finally got her drivers updated?

Even if the driver update doesn't fix the crashes for you. Now that you meet at least the system requirements, there is hope that the issue will be fixed soon.

To me, it's also no wonder you get snarky remarks. We reap what we sow.

Anyway, I always missed some kind of humor in your posts, but the "Stockholm hostage syndrome" reference made me laugh actually. :matte-motes-smitten:

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

@Theresa Tennyson your snarky remarks are exactly why few people brave the Technical forums to actually try to get to the bottom of problems with the Second Life software.

There's no curiosity or scientific approach or willingness to gather data impartially, as you would expect with people who are *scientists* i.e. computer programming is a science, correct? Or is it only a trade like car repairman? I think really the latter.

Instead of the scientific and impartial approach, we get this snarky, nasty, snarling invective -- the user is always wrong, worse, he's bought some completely Neanderthal computer or he's in the Dark Ages because...he has the basic computer you could buy NEW LAST YEAR from Best Buy and not-Windows-10 which geeks themselves warn strenuously against (!).

I was thinking this computer was 3 years old -- it feels like and it gets a real workout every day -- but my son reminded me that it is actually less than 2 years old. And that's just it -- running Second Life is a proposition where the makers tell you that you must buy a new computer or at least a $400 graphics card that you must install yourself or pay $100 to install.

Imagine, the crime of irrelevance and backwardness *gasp*, not to have gone from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 - and this from Linux box users or Mac users who hate Windows.

The reason these Taiwanese (what, I'm supposed to buy Lenovo?!) lock up the driver is so that the machine continues to play as they constructed it instead of falling to the mercy of every geek who images inserting alien graphic cards into situations where they burn up the mother board or cause other problems. And that's fine, I don't have a problem with that, as I've had SL burn out my motherboard from an alien graphics card and I've also had another time when ultimately it just didn't work and caused other problems.

Yes, everything under the sun that wonky nerds do not need who are in the masses in the norms population -- YouTube, Netflix, WoW, Facebook, Slack, etc. 

Most people don't need to build Unity worlds on weekends or during their 1/5 free time from their Google or IBM job.

The masses in the norms population don't need Second Life either. Second Life is a complicated, technically demanding proposition. The only application you mentioned that's even remotely hard on a computer graphics system is WoW and even that's pretty basic.

You run a business in Second Life that runs to hundreds - possibly thousands - of dollars a month and not only know little about the technical aspects of both the platform and the machines necessary to access it, but you seem to consider that a badge of honor. You complain about the "computer geeks" and their opinions but you cite them as the reason you don't keep your operating system updated, or even do basic research to see if you should. Interesting strategy...

It might surprise you that the machine I use most in my career is not a computer but a sewing machine. It may also surprise you that, seeing that my career depends on it, it is neither new nor expensive. It's about 25 years old and I got it for $99 on Ebay.

However, it is 1) really good - a Swiss-made tank of a machine, and 2) well-maintained - I have the shop manual and I get it professionally serviced every so often. I also did a fair amount of research before I got it. I've worked places that have used everything from Brother sewing machines from Wal-Mart to computerized $8500 "plastic-surgeon's wife special" embroidery machines, but when it came to my personal machine I picked what I felt would do the best job and it's been one of the best investments I've ever made.

 

 

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Could you explain in layman terms what CEF is or what the features/aspects are that would be introduced in a later iteration of Oculus Rift?

I'm puzzled why, in the Oculus Rift version of the viewer, something related to seeing images better/faster/easier wouldn't be part of it. If that's what it is.

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Oh, that's very interesting. Thanks for picking that out.

Interestingly, nothing has gone wrong with my machine by that forced update that Windows bought even if these "dodgy Taiwenese computer makers" (!) Theresa is fretting about had it locked. Go know.

It seems to me the long hang on log-out is not gone yet.

But I need to try the other main release candidate, plus observe the log-out closely and get back to you.

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arton Rotaru wrote: I'm pretty sure anybody who replied in this thread is on one or the other windows system (even Qie, I think).

Yep. Although, to be honest, I did run Linux as my desktop until a few years ago and that box is still on our home network as a file / backup server. In fact, there's an old Mac Mini still around, too, hooked up to a big screen TV for use when the Republicans debate on channels to which only Republicans subscribe.

I've learned to be careful about choosing eccentricities and obsessions. Once upon a time I ran Gentoo Linux because of a slight performance advantage. That was unnecessarily eccentric (far from the most popular distro) and forced me to obsess over details of each Linux update.

I decided I could find more interesting obsessions.

 

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Prokofy Neva wrote:

Could you explain in layman terms what CEF is or what the features/aspects are that would be introduced in a later iteration of Oculus Rift?

 

I'm puzzled why, in the Oculus Rift version of the viewer, something related to seeing images better/faster/easier wouldn't be part of it. If that's what it is.

Oh, sorry, I've only just confused things. CEF is very probably irrelevant here, I was just grasping at straws about what might have changed around the time the crashes started. The only reason I thought of it was you mentioned Opera, which is kind of an outlier, so that got me thinking about browsers, and Chrome, and the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) which almost surely has nothing to do with anything. For completeness: things in SL viewers that use web-based windows (such as Search and Profiles) as well as media displays, relied on a sort of code library called "WebKit", but this became increasingly obsolete (for a bunch of reasons including support of new HTML features, security, compatibility, etc.), and LL shifted to CEF instead.

I'm quite sure that, when it comes out, the new Oculus Rift viewer will include CEF, but it will also sweep in almost two years worth of other fixes and updates in the viewer codebase totally unrelated to VR.

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@Whirly In fact the very newest viewer offered as the official viewer, and its update that happened just yesterday I think, are still stable for me since the Windows 8.1 update and changing a few of the settings like draw distance. Yes there are still occasional hard crashes in very laggy overfilled sims but mainly it works. TBH, the Oculus Rift viewer worked better, and allowed more visibility, but it didn't have "notifications" as a "thing". I find I can't live without "Notifications" now which really improves work flow.

@Qie thanks for that, although I'm not sure I'm more enlightened. I wonder if you could think about the issue of visibility and draw distances and clarity of the scene and how it loads and what might be different in this (what people say is outdated) Oculus Rift viewer. Or maybe the issue is if you are already WEARING the Oculus Rift thing, that does all the stuff you need to do, and the SL world-scene is just an add-on and it doesn't matter how flat or whatever it is.

Which reminds me of the origins of Second Life -- it was made merely as an add-on, a landscape, to be used with the Rig that Philip was designing then which was a Virtual Reality goggles thing. SL was merely appended to that, not visa versa. Funny how it turned out. But it is useful to remember that Second Life is not Virtual Reality; it is a Virtual World and they are different with different social and technical problems.

The reason I use Opera is simple: Firefox is a piece of garbage. I like the feel of Firefox but it just crashes constantly and hangs and just loses your browser history which I rely on for work constantly having to gather news and snippets to translate. Firefox has one really keen advantage in that you can right-side-up the images that Google Docs won't let you right-side within its own program. That's really funny, that you have to use Firefox to do a thing Google wouldn't do (I figure it's not an issue of couldn't). This is really important if you are trying to work with archives or whatever and you have lots of stacks of images running through those Xerox machines you can tie to email -- because wrong-side documents happen constantly and then you can't read them properly. This is an admittedly esoteric problem but it's why I liked Firefox. Opera is made by a Norwegian company.

Then I finally had one day too many of having all my windows close and all my data lose and I junked it and may never go back unless this new cashier thing the Lindens are sending a notice about relies on having to go to Firefox, because Opera, when I go to their test site says something a bit iffy like "Good enough" or "so-so" which may not work with SL. 

I hate Chrome for so many reasons and don't want to give custom to Google that I went to Opera which a lot of Russians use for its ability to EASILY have circumvention of sites blocked by the censor opened up.

But all this brings me to a completely different issue back in SL -- whether I use Firefox or Opera (haven't tested with Crome) this odd thing keeps happening in SL and has happened now for I would say 9 or more months. While you're flying along, or sometimes just zooming around trying to do things from one sim, these browser windows just open up on you all of a sudden. Inword, a little browser window opens up and briefly retards your progress then closes. I don't get why that is happening or what it is. The view into the next sim? or? The window is small and black. It looks kind of like the CMD prompt window but it's inworld and just opens up. I thought at first it was related to media on a prim being somewhere, say, in a roadside ad. But that is definitely not it as I see it on sims where there isn't any media on a prim doing that, which in any event creates a window that looks different. Do you know what this is?

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