macOS apps will need to be notarized to be accepted by Gatekeeper after its Mojave 10.14.5 update.

Reference Safely open apps on your Mac
Also see BUG-227740 Mac OS 10.15 Catalina throws error on launch

macOS apps will need to be notarized to be accepted by Gatekeeper after its Mojave 10.14.5 update.

In essence, Bakes on Mesh (BoM) allows you to “wear” system skins, tattoos and clothing on mesh avatars. It achieves this by “baking” these system layers onto the mesh. More details on this and how to use BoM has been amply covered elsewhere.

Recommended reading:

• Bakes on Mesh - SL knowledgebase
• Bakes on Mesh - A Basic Primer
• Keep Calm and Bakes On (Mesh)
• Get Baked

Since those pages cover all the basics, repeating it all here would be redundant. Instead this page draws attention to some specific issues, and adds additional information.

An unofficial list of products supporting BoM natively may be found here (we do not maintain that list).

If you have not yet updated to the BoM-capable version of Firestorm, then people using BoM will appear, to you, to have solid colored bodies with text on them, or splotches of color. You will need to update the viewer to see them properly. Firestorm viewers versions up through 6.2.4 do not support BoM.

Have a look here or contact the creator.

You can continue to use appliers as you did before; there is no requirement to migrate to BoM. However, if you wish to use BoM, ask in the product support group or contact the maker of the body/head to ask how you might use BoM with their product.

In theory, yes. In practice, however, the body/head UV map (i.e., the “layout” of the skin) may not be a perfect match, and you may see stretching. In particular, you may have problems with the hands, feet, and finger- and toenails. Always try demos before buying!

Maybe… it all depends on the body. Some BoM-compatible bodies may remove the onionskin layers. So for this, contact the support group to ask.

You are probably still wearing an alpha layer; with BoM, this will make your avatar red. Remove the alpha layer.

A partial list of support groups where you can go for product-specific help for mesh bodies and heads. If your product's group is not listed here, use viewer search (Ctrl-F), or contact the maker.

• Mesh Body Addicts

• Akeruka
• Belleza
• Catwa
• eBody
• EXMACHINA
• Lelutka
• LOGO
• Maitreya
• Nardcotix
• Niramyth
• Signature
• Slink
• Tonic

If you can turn in circles but not move forward/backwards, you probably have Movelock enabled.

• Go to the Avatar menu→ Movement submenu and make sure Movelock is not ticked.
• See Movelock info for more information or if you are unable to change the Movelock setting.

However, there are a few other things to try:

• Go to a different region and see if you are able to move there. If so, something at your original location is causing the problem.
• If you are using a LAQ mesh head, make sure you don't have the Pose feature turned on.
• Make sure you don't have some other HUD with a pose feature. (For instance, one user has reported this problem with the Lelutka Axis face HUD.)
• If you can't find what attachment is causing the problem, try going to Advanced menu (Ctrl-Alt-D ) → Release Keys.
  • Note: Release Keys will be greyed out if RLV has locked any of your attachments. To disable RLV, go to Prefs → Firestorm → Extras, untick the top item, and then relog.
• Make sure you don't have the Firestorm pose stand active.
  • If you have the Pose Stand button on your toolbar, make sure it's not “on.”
  • If you don't have the button, go to Avatar menu → Toolbar Buttons, drag the Pose Stand button out to your toolbar, and make sure it's not “on.”

• Try Avatar menu → Avatar Health → Stop Animations & Revoke Permissions.
• Try right clicking your avatar → Reset Skeleton & Animations.
• If the above two items did not work, go to a different region and try them again.
• If you have the animation in your inventory, play it from inventory, then click Stop.
• Remove attachments one by one until the animation stops. (This will eliminate worn items as a cause.)
  • Note: Animations can be in ANY attachment.
  • Note: Attachments are anything with a box icon. Look in Inventory → Current Outfit folder to see all your attachments.

• Make sure the Firestorm AO is off:
  • On the AO button on your toolbar, untick the checkbox.
  • Note: The Firestorm AO can be active even if the button is not on your toolbar. If it is not on your toolbar, go to Avatar menu → Toolbar Buttons, drag the AO button out onto your toolbar, and make sure it is not ticked.

• If you know that a “sittable” item gave you the animation:
  1. Go to Preferences → Firestorm → Protection → Revoke Permissions.
  2. Temporarily set this to “Revoke on Sit and Stand.”
  3. Sit on the item, then stand. This should stop the animation.
  4. Change Preferences → Firestorm → Protection → Revoke Permissions back to either “Never” or “Revoke on Stand.”

• Try Advanced menu → Release keys. (After doing this, you will need to recreate the FS bridge: Avatar → Avatar health → Recreate LSL Bridge.)

• You may simply be experiencing lag: See Troubleshooting Lag for tips to reduce this.
• Many pose balls will request permission to animate you. If you did not see the animation request, look in your Notifications window for the message. Click “Accept.”
• Make sure you have not blocked the item or its owner: Look in Comm menu → Block List, see if the item or the item's owner is there, and remove the item/person from the block list.
• Go to Preferences → Firestorm → Protection → Revoke Permissions. For normal use, this should be set to either “Normal” (no protection) or “Revoke on Stand.” It should normally NOT be set to “Revoke on Sit” or “Revoke on Sit and Stand,” as both of these will prevent items from animating you when you are sitting.

“Rubber-banding” is when you try to walk forward and then suddenly snap back to a previous position. Sometimes you will seem unable to stop walking. This is caused by region lag, when the server can't keep up with processing avatar movement (collisions).

• For info about region lag see here: Region Lag
• For some things that region or parcel owners can do to reduce region lag see here: Reducing Server Lag.

This typically happens when you have two or more conflicting AOs (animation overriders) on.

• Start by removing known AOs until you are wearing only one known AO.
• If that doesn't help, start by removing other HUDs, then all other attachments, one by one, until it stops. Any worn item can contain an animation, so don't assume that some items are “ok.”
• Note: Attachments are anything with a box icon. Look in Inventory → Current Outfit folder to see all your attachments.

• Try turning the opposite direction to the spin.
• Try pressing BOTH right and left arrow keys at the same time, repeatedly.
• Relog.

This is a possible bridge problem: recreate bridge by going to Avatar menu → Avatar Health → Recreate LSL Bridge.

This is a possible bridge problem: recreate bridge by going to Avatar menu → Avatar Health → Recreate LSL Bridge.

For unknown reasons, some users need to change an additional setting:

Go to Preferences → Privacy → Lookat, and tick “Don't Send My Selection Target Hints.”

• In most cases, pressing Ctrl-R to toggle run mode will get you back into walk (though it may in some cases be necessary to hit Ctrl-R more than once).
• If you are wearing a scripted AO (animation overrider), turn off any “running” features it has.
• If you are using the Firestorm built-in AO (animation overrider), make sure there are no running animations in the “Walking” or “Standing” categories.

After Strafe

Ref. BUG-6825

In one specific case, the above will not work. Specifically:

• You have Preferences → Move & View → Movement → Tap-tap-hold to run enabled.
• Press shift, then tap-tap-hold the left or right arrow key

That gets you running sideways. If you release shift before the arrow key, you will be stuck running.

To stop running, you have to repeat the sequence: press shift, then tap-tap-hold left or right arrow.

• Go to Preferences → Sound & Media → Voice, and deselect “Move Avatar Lips When Speaking.” Note: This is the only viewer feature that affects lip movement.
• If you are wearing a mesh head, turn off any animations in the head. For more help, ask the support group for that head.
• Go to Comm menu → Gestures. Tick “Active only” at the bottom of the window. Review the list for any gestures that might contain a face animation. If in doubt, turn them all off, one at a time, to find the one responsible for the lip movement.

This is a known SL bug also affecting the SL viewer. Refer to this SL bug report for more information.

People use the term a great deal, but usually without really understanding what it means, what causes it or how to deal with it. Some of the things commonly suggested to reduce lag actually have little or no effect.

First off, “lag” is a catch-all word that actually covers three very different things, and it is important to distinguish between them. Most lag reduction methods only deal with one of these three aspects.

You can use the Statistics Bar to get detailed information of what might be causing lag.

This is when you have connectivity issues. There are problems somewhere in the network between your computer and the LL servers. This usually can be noticed when you start to experience packet loss. Press Shift-Ctrl-1 (or Advanced¹⁾→ Performance Tools → Statistics Bar) and look at the top, packet loss; ideally this should be 0%; if it isn't, you have a connectivity issue and are losing data. Also, check Ping SIM. Ideally, this should be under 200.

Symptoms of a poor connection include (but are not limited to):

• failure of your avatar or textures to rez;
• object information not displaying in hover tips when you mouse over the object;
• teleport failure;
• random disconnections.

You can try to mitigate network lag by playing with your bandwidth. Too high, or too low, a value will result in network lag. For information on how to determine your optimal bandwidth, refer to this page.

Aside from the network issues mentioned above, some programs may inhibit or interfere with a good connection. Some firewall software and anti-virus programs are known to do this. You may want to temporarily disable them and see if the situation improves.

Everything you see has to be drawn by your graphics card. When there is too much to draw, when your computer cannot keep up, you experience client-side lag. Avatar Complexity (formerly called Avatar Render Weight or Avatar Rendering Cost) is part of client-side lag.

Symptoms of client-side lag include jerky or sluggish movement.

There are many things you can do to reduce this, without having to ask people to adapt to you:

• reduce your draw distance (do you really need to see 512m away?);
• Decrease max non-impostor avatars in Preferences → Graphics → General, which makes drawing of distant avatars much faster;
• disable atmospheric shaders (which serves to drastically reduce how much your computer has to render, as the sky alone is very graphics-intensive);
• if need be, inhibit the rendering of other avatars: Advanced → Rendering Types → Avatar - or derender them.
• try reducing your level of detail settings for everyday use or to improve performance: Preferences → Graphics → Objects and Sculpts LOD; you can always adjust this setting again temporarily if something specific fails to render for you.

Client side lag is local to you. It is a direct result of how powerful your computer is. It is no one else's fault if your computer cannot handle a specific situation. So if you're in a high-lag setting, adapt temporarily as described above.

It must also be pointed out that client side lag does NOT affect things like scripts, at all. It has next to zero impact on a SIM's performance.

Contrary to popular belief, particles do not “lag a SIM'. Their effect on a SIM, on the servers, is in fact close to zero. Particles are almost entirely client-side. They are rendered on your computer, by your graphics card, and in fact, do NOT require a script to keep them going. They need a script to initiate the effect, yes, but afterward the script may be removed and the particle effect will keep going forever - until another script is dropped in to turn them off, or the object is taken or deleted.

If you find that particles are “lagging you”, it is wrong to ask that the effect be stopped. Instead, stop it yourself, on your own computer. That way others who are less affected may continue to enjoy them.

You can disable particles in a number of ways:

• Advanced → Rendering Types → Particles
• Preferences → Graphics → Max. particle count - set to 0

Doing any of these things will stop particles “lagging you”. There is no need to ask others to degrade their SL experience on your behalf. Also, again, particles do NOT cause server-side or script lag. Even if the scripts are not removed, a single one uses 0.02ms script time.

Owners of venues that have a “no particles” policy may mean well, but are misinformed. Again, particles do not lag a SIM, and are very easily dealt with client-side as described previously. Those venue owners are aiming at the wrong target in trying to reduce lag: particles aren't it, scripts are - and even more so, moving avatars (see below). You can't remove the avatars, of course, but you can request that they not show up with heavily scripted attachments.

(Having said that, every little bit helps when it comes to reducing script lag, so if you have a particle effect that does not require the script to be in it at all times, remove it.)

Like particles, high avatar complexity does not lag a region; the effect is entirely client-side. The higher the complexity, the greater the client lag it causes. Be aware of your own complexity, so as to try to reduce the lag you cause for others.

Server-side lag is caused by several things, independently. There are two major causes; all others are secondary and negligible. They are, in order of impact on a SIM:

• Physics. People, even wearing nothing at all, with a low complexity, and no scripts, will lag a SIM. The SIM needs to keep track of where each avatar is, to prevent them walking through one another, floors, walls, etc. Avatar movement is very high when it comes to server side lag. Sitting down reduces this lag significantly. Your avatar, in fact, becomes linked to the prim you're sitting on.

• Scripts. This is common knowledge, compared to the previous point. If you know you're going to a busy event, then remove scripted attachments, as many as possible. An AO in and of itself is negligible when compared to hair that is resize-scripted. Keep the AO, and instead ensure that your hair, shoes and other attachments have no resize scripts in them. Detach all HUDs which you do not actually need. (There is no good reason whatsoever for anyone to be carrying around more than 200 scripts on a human avatar, even when in full RP attire, with combat HUDs.)

Contrary to popular belief, prims do not lag a SIM - or more precisely, their effect on lag is miniscule compared to the two things mentioned above. Scripted prims cause lag; unscripted ones do not - relatively speaking, of course.

So, if you're going to an event, before you leave for it, check your attachments (hair, shoes, etc.) to ensure that they are unscripted. To those running events, it is strongly suggested that you ask attendees to do these things; a badly lagged SIM affects everyone at the event.

NOTE: As stated earlier, lag caused by physics (primarily avatar movement) is the number one cause of region lag. If physics lag is bad enough, scripts simply will stop running; avatar movement is considered more important than scripts. If there are 40 people at an event, and many are moving about, it will be laggy even if none of those people are wearing scripts.

NOTE: Moving away from a scripted prim will not do anything to reduce the “lag” it may be causing you. Scripts all run on the region server, and therefore, they are “global” to the server. No matter where you are in the region, the effect of that script running - that is, the time taken to run it, and the memory it consumes - will be felt on the entire region.

If you want more detailed information on checking for region lag, read on.

In order to understand region lag better, it helps to have a basic understanding of what is going on.

The simulator software that runs SL regions loops through a sequence of steps, during which it handles the following, among other things:

• avatars moving around
• physical objects
• scripts

Each time it goes through the loop, it spends a little time dealing with each of the above: are avatars walking? If so, update their position, make sure they're not trying to go through a wall, and so on. For scripts, give each script a bit of time to run.

This loop is called a frame and runs, or should run, 45 times every second. That means that each iteration of the loop lasts 22.2ms, and that is the total frame time.

You will need to open the Stats window with Shift-Ctrl-1 for this.

Look for Simulator, near the top. click to expand if it isn't. Time Dilation basically says how long 1 second is in the region. Ideally, this should be 1.000, but normally can drop to 0.0097. The smaller the number here, the more lag there is. Then, look at SimFPS and Physics FPS. In a healthy region, these should both be 45.0 (there's the 45 mentioned above, the number of times a second the simulator software executes its loop). If these drop below 45, then the simulator software is unable to run all 45 iterations per second; it is lagged.

Now scroll down to the bottom, to Time; click to expand, if it isn't. This shows how much time is taken by each of the tasks the simulator needs to do in each Frame (for info on what each value means, refer here).

Total frame time should be 22.2ms, ideally (remember, that's how long each frame runs). The first value to look at is Spare time. This tells you whether the region is lagged or not. The higher the spare time, the better. If you have 0.001 ms here, then the region is lagged.²⁾ The values between Total frame time and Spare time will give an indication of what is causing the lag. For example, high script time will mean that the region has script lag.

In simple terms, the cache is where information is stored on your computer that allows things to load faster than if you have to download it from the server. In more detail:

In SL-relevant lay terms, the cache is a time-saving device. When you need to see a texture in SL or get something from your inventory, it happens more quickly if the item is already cached than if you need to download that asset from the SL servers. If you wander into an area with a lot of textures you don't already have cached, it'll take some time for your computer to capture them all and store them in your cache. Under normal circumstances, you want to leave those textures there (that is, don't clear cache) so that the next time you're in that location, you don't have to wait for everything to download again — it'll already be available to you on your hard drive. Same with inventory. When your inventory cache is full and not experiencing any issues, then when you log in to SL, all your inventory will be right there. If it's been cleared, then you have to wait for everything to get fetched from the SL servers again before you can see it and use it. For a more technical explanation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache.

It is commonly believed that clearing cache can help with a multitude of issues, but really it's only helpful for a handful. We do not recommend clearing cache unless you are having an issue that cannot be solved by other means.

We get asked a lot about what to set cache size to; the simple answer is to set it to the maximum possible in the viewer, as long as you have room on your hard drive. In Firestorm, the cache size can be increased to 9,984 MB. We do have a way to allow you to have a larger cache, but it requires extra hardware and software. If you are interested please see Squid Proxy Cache

Be picky about why and when you clear your cache. Clearing cache doesn't fix everything. In fact, it doesn't fix nearly as many problems as many people seem to think. And doing it when it's unnecessary has its drawbacks, including slower initial rez times and excess bandwidth being pulled, which can create sim lag. “Clear your cache” is something we'll recommend ONLY if the problem appears to be cache-related: that is, pertaining to textures or, once in a while, inventory. A full cache is almost always better than an empty one. Here is a basic “DO” list:

Don't clear cache as a matter of routine maintenance. If there isn't something actually wrong with your cache, then this does nothing beneficial.

Don't clear it for problems unrelated to the cache. For example, it won't help for:

• teleport issues
• asset upload issues
• movement or communication problems
• most kinds of lag
• most kinds of crashes
• a vast majority of bake fails
• any problems concerning music, video or voice.

There are some exceptions (e.g., crashes related to textures), but in many cases, other causes are more likely, and clearing cache doesn't have to be the first measure. The list above is by no means exhaustive; its purpose is to provide an idea of how many common issues are unrelated (or only occasionally related) to cache.

• When many textures appear as distorted rainbows or psychedelic colors, you may choose to clear your texture cache.
• When your inventory is not loading fully, you may choose to clear your inventory cache.
• A cache clear may be part of performing a clean install of the viewer.

Note that often, only part of your cache needs to be cleared. While you can clear your full cache by clicking the button in Preferences, it is not hard to perform the needed part of the cache clear manually. You can find your cache folder by going to Preferences and then Network & Files → Directories. Click the “Open” button alongside the path to your cache files location. In there you'll see some files ending with .inv.gz – these are your inventory cache files – and a folder containing your texture cache. More information is here for Firestorm.

And that is indeed a million dollar question! Lag is pervasive in SL, and there is no such thing as a “lag free SIM” - except one that is completely empty.

Before this can be answered, it is first vital to understand what lag is exactly, so please refer to this page for an explanation of the 3 forms of lag.

If you find yourself being badly lagged, there are things you can do to reduce the effects of two of the three types: client and network. You can only reduce server side lag if you own or rent the parcel or region being affected by it.

This is the most common of lag you will experience in SL. And you can do a great deal about it, without requiring that others do anything, and most of it simply entails reducing your graphics settings. Try these one at a time; sometimes just one or two will be enough to make things significantly better. Also, they are not given in order: in different situations, some will be better solutions than others.

Graphics settings changes that may help:

• Set your graphics to Low: Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Quality and speed.
• Ensure that anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing are both disabled: Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings tab.
• Reduce your draw distance.
• Reduce the maximum number of non-impostor avatars (this makes drawing of distant avatars much faster): Preferences → Graphics → General.
• Reduce your Maximum Complexity value (this renders more complex avatars as “jellydolls”).
• Disable atmospheric shaders (which serves to drastically reduce how much your computer has to render, as the sky alone is very graphics-intensive).
• You can derender everyone except friends via top menu, World → Show Friends only. (Remember to re-enable, then TP out and back.)
• If need be, inhibit the rendering of all avatars: Advanced → Rendering Types → Avatar.
• Alternately, you can derender avatars one by one, by right clicking on them and selecting Derender.
• You can also derender objects, the same way.
• If there are many particle effects around you, turn particles off: Advanced → Rendering Types → Hide Particles.

These things will reduce the “quality” of your SL experience, but they may be required if you find that your movement is badly impaired by client side lag.

System issues to check:

• If you have a dual graphic card laptop then see here.
• Make sure your anti-virus software is not scanning the viewer cache folders; this has been known to have a huge impact on viewer performance. (Look at look Preferences → Network & Files → Directories → Cache location, to see where the cache folder is located.) Whatever anti-virus you use, Whitelist the viewer and the cache folder to prevent this from happening. Webroot is known to cause serious problems; see this special Webroot page.
• If you use Windows, try disabling SuperFetch, and see if that helps. More info here and here.

Windows 10: Check to see if your computer is downloading updates in the background or running defragging operations.

• To check for defragging:
  1. Open File Explorer
  2. Right click a drive (for instance, C:) and select Properties
  3. Click the “Tools” tab
  4. Click the “Optimise” button
  5. A window will opening showing if a defrag is in action
• To check for background updating:
  1. (instructions to come)

If you own or rent a home, or a public venue, there are things you can do to reduce client lag for yourself and others without overly sacrificing the “feel” of the location. For example:

• Use small textures on all structures, 512×512 or smaller.
• Avoid using prims that change textures if possible; if you need them, again, try to keep the textures small.
• Avoid using textures with alpha channels if none are needed (a solid brick wall texture doesn't need an alpha channel).
• Make enclosed spaces that do not give too large a view of the exterior, especially the sky.
• Use particles and animated textures sparingly.

Another common cause of lag is your network connection. You may even have a high speed connection, but if you have set your bandwidth too low or too high in Firestorm, you will be causing lag for yourself.

Determining the optimal value for bandwidth in Firestorm is explained on on this page.

Other things that are known to affect connection speeds are firewalls and anti-virus software. So if you still experience network-related lag, you can try disabling these, temporarily, and seeing if things improve. If they do, then you may want to consider replacing firewall and/or anti-virus software.

In SL, you can reduce bandwidth usage (and thus network lag), by looking for and identifying items which cause frequent updates between client (the viewer) and SL servers. Many objects cause such updates; some you will need or want to keep, but you may be able to eliminate others.

To get a visual indication of what objects cause updates, go to top menu, Develop → Show info → Show Updates to Objects. (Press Ctrl-Alt-Q to enable Develop on the top menu, if it isn't.) This will enable colored trails above objects that are updating. Each color has a different meaning¹⁾:

• Red: Indicates a full update, such as the creation of a prim. This is a relatively large data packet sent to your computer. If you see objects that are showing a constant stream of red, they're contending for your bandwidth, which may cause other things in the area (like textures) to load slower. If the object is made up of many pieces, the packet is larger.
• Blue: Indicates a partial update, such as a change of position or color for a prim. These are always smaller than full updates. However, the same rules apply as for the full updates. If you are creating content, it's a good habit to make sure it's not updating many times per second. Changing colors, textures, shape, or particle parameters several times per second causes partial updates that contend for your bandwidth.
• Green: Indicates an ending update, such as the deletion of a prim. If this packet gets lost on the way from the server to your computer, the object becomes a “ghost” – your viewer still renders it, but you can walk through it, and when you edit it, the Creator field is blank because the object no longer exists on the server.

You can disable showing of updates by unchecking the setting mentioned above: Develop → Show info → Show Updates.

Objects that update are generally (but not always) scripted. However, many scripted objects do not constantly generate updates. For example, a scripted chair that is not in use, is “idle”. It does nothing, and therefore isn't generating netwrok traffic.

NOTE: Some effects are in-world only; they cause things to change visually but are handled entirely by the client, thus do not create any network (or region) lag. These include: particles, texture animation, client-side rotation.

If you own or rent a parcel or region, then there are many things you can do to help reduce server lag. Here is a partial, incomplete list:

• Remove all unnecessary scripts.
• Remove all items that rez temporary objects (temp rez creates a lot of lag on a SIM).
• If you host events, consider providing seating for avatars and ask them to make use of it.
• Similarly, for events, request that attendees detach scripted attachments before they arrive (NOTE: asking people to reduce their ARC, or complexity, does not alleviate server lag in a noticeable way).
• For large parcels, provide easy ways for people to teleport about, saving them walking (avatars moving creates physics lag).

This tab is used to help diagnose and resolve problems the region might be experiencing, particularly region/server lag.

The top three check boxes disable vital functions of the region; do not use them lightly! They can serve not only to try to identify potential problems with objects on the region, but also as emergency measures to combat griefing.

• Disable Scripts: Disable all scripts on the region.
• Disable Collisions: Disables collisions from occurring.
• Disable Physics: Disables the physics system. Note that while this is off, no avatar will be able to move.

Object return allows you to return all objects owned by a given person. This is useful in griefing situations, but use with extreme care, select the name carefully as there is no way to undo this!

• Resident: Click Choose to opens the avatar selector to allow you to select whose objects to return.
• Options:
  • With Scripts: Only returned objects if they are scripted; unscripted ones will be left.
  • On someone else's land: Will return only objects on parcels owned by someone other than you.
  • In every region in this estate: Useful if you own several regions, which have been littered with objects by the same person.
• Return: Click once you have selected the person and options. You will be asked confirmation. Again, this cannot be undone; use with care!

The next two buttons display lists of objects, which can be used to find any that might be causing excessive region lag:

• Get Top Colliders: Opens the list of top colliders.
• Get Top Scripts: Opens the list of top scripted objects.

The last two buttons concern region restarts:

• Restart Region: Schedule a region restart. You can indicate how much to wait before this will commence, the default being 120secs (2mins). A message will be sent to the region, warning people of the restart.
  Restarts can help resolve some issues with a region.
• Cancel Restart: Cancels the Restart that you have scheduled
• Debug Region console: Opens the Region Debug window

Several creators recommend specific settings in order for you to be able to better see their products. Sadly, some of these recommendations will lead to many people crashing more. For example, go to the top menu, Advanced → Debug Settings (press Ctrl-Alt-D to enable Advanced, if it isn't):

• RenderVolumeLODFactor should never be set over 4; a good value is between 2 and 3.
• TextureLoadFullRes should never be enabled (in other words, it should be set to FALSE).

If you are advised to raise LOD above 4, please disregard that advice.

Similarly, there is a notecard going round which suggests settings to prevent graphics crashes. Sadly, those settings can often result in perfectly ordinary content refusing to render. So if you have changed debug settings per such a notecard, revert them.

For both the cases above, should you not remember what settings you changed, then proceed as follows:

1. Back up your settings as explained here.
2. Then wipe settings by following the instructions on this page.
3. Log back in and see if this fixes your problem. If it does, you can try a restore and see if the issue returns.
4. If the problem does return, wipe settings again and set them from scratch.

If you are getting the error in the title, then please refer to this page, this page or this page for those using Intel graphics for possible solutions.

With thanks to Skua Sarrasine for having found the first of these.

Symptom:“This is a bug thats only experienced with Firestorm running. Basically, at seemingly random, but very infrequent times, my dual screens will bug out, producing two displays of solid colour, randomly. Sometimes Windows will return saying it recovered from an error code 7 or 3.”

Some research turned up this for error code 7; it suggests setting physX to CPU. And that seems to have solved the issue.

Note also the (apparent) interaction with Chrome.

This is a known issue with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 with a 64-bit operating system; it affects other programs in addition to Second Life viewers.

Please try the following - but NOT while logged in.

• Go to the Start button
• Type services.msc and then press enter.
• Wait until the services window pops up.
• You may have to expand the window a bit to see the services.
• Look for DesktopWindowManager.
  • If it is running, right click it and select Stop. Wait until it stops.
  • You will probably see your desktop transparency window borders go flat. No worries.
• Right click again and select Properties.
  • In the Startup type, select Manual. Click OK.

• Open the Task Manager, by one of the following methods…
  1. Right click the task bar and choose Task Manager.
  2. Click the Start button and type Task Manager, then click on the result.
  3. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and choose Task Manager from the list.
  4. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
• Click More Details link at the bottom if needed
• Look at the several column headers, they will show a percentage of use. Memory or Disk may show a high percentage when Firestorm is not responding.
• Click on one of the high-percentage column headers to sort the processes. The top one is likely the cause. If it's your antivirus, make sure you have whitelisted Firestorm and its cache (refer to this page for whitelisting guidance).

If you find the Firestorm seems to freeze up every so often, then try these things, one at a time, testing after each one:

• Viewer freezes while “Loading world…“– If you have Intel HD 620 or Intel HD 630, and Windows 10 – This is an Intel driver issue. The fix is to roll back to driver 24.20.100.6025. Download Legacy Intel® Graphics Driver for Windows® 10 Version: 24.20.100.6025 (Ref. BUG-225655.)
• If you have chat saving enabled, and have a large number of chat transcript files, these could be causing the freezes. (Ref. FIRE-11322.) Try moving your chat transcripts elsewhere and see if the freezing stops.
  You can find your chat transcripts by going to Preferences→ Network & Files -> Directories→ Conversation logs and transcripts location; click the Open button.
• Set Preferences → Network & Files → Directories → Cache Size to maximum (9984MB or the maximum space available, whichever is less)
• Ensure that your antivirus software is not scanning the viewer cache folder. See Whitelisting the Viewer in Anti Virus Software for more information.
• If you have ever enabled “Full Res Textures”, disable this setting. Top menu bar, Develop→ Rendering → Full Res Textures (dangerous). Ensure that this is NOT checked. (Ctrl-Alt-Q to enable Develop, if it isn't.)
• Advanced → Debug Settings → Set FastCacheFetchEnabled to FALSE - then relog.
  Ctrl-Alt-D to enable Advanced, if it isn't.
• Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings → Viewer Texture Memory Buffer - raise this as high as it will go. Then relog. (64-bit version only)
• Mac with Bitdefender: Refer to this SL bug report for a possible explanation: mac freezes if tabbing away after teleport since macOS Mojave 10.14.3
• Tip from a user: Windows users: If you're running CrashPlan, open the “Advanced” section of “Backup” settings and uncheck “Back up open files.”
• Tip from a user: Windows users: If you have “Magic Control Technology Display Utility” (MCTDUtil.exe), disable it. See https://www.file.net/process/mctdutil.exe.html.
• Tip from a user: Linux users: Turn off compositing, see if it helps.

For additional suggestions, see the page on Severe Lag.

• Crashing During Install or Startup

• Crashing While Running Firestorm

• Login Failures

• Fehlermeldung: Texture Discarded Due to Insufficent Memory

• Graphics Glitches and Crashes - Older Versions of Firestorm

• Doing a Clean Reinstall

• How to Manually Clear Cache

• Manually Clearing Settings

• Media Related

• Search Doesn't Work, Remains Black

• Voice Related

• Bridge Issues

• Camera is Pointing Wrong

• Freunde/Gruppen Fenster lassen sich nicht mehr anheften

• Firestorm Locks Up on "Initializing VFS"

• Hands Flickering

• I Can't See Worn Mesh

• I Cannot Log in Unless I Clear Cache First

• SLURLs werden nicht mehr im Firestorm geladen

• I Dragged Something into the AO Folder and Can't Get it Out!

• My Friends List is Empty!

• The Viewer Seems to Freeze Every So Often

• How do I Get Rid of all this Debug Stuff?

• Issues Related to Shadows

• Large Flexi Prims, Like Tree Fronds, Vanish

• Objects Vanish

• Small Prims Vanish Even when Quite Close

• Making WindLight Setting Persist after Teleport

• How do I Derender/Re-render things?

• Graphics Card Not Recognized - FS 4.4.1 Only

• Attachments Detach then Reattach at Login

• My feet are in the ground, or I'm floating

• I am missing Inventory

• Help! I'm Wearing my Entire Inventory!

• Avatar erscheint als Wolke, oder andere Darstellungsprobleme

• I Can't Log In Because It Says I am Already Logged In

• Persistent Typing Animation

• Stuck Inventory Folders Work-Around

• Why Does Teleport Fail so Much?

• Worn Attachment not Showing as Worn in Inventory

• Determining Optimal Bandwidth Setting

• HTTP Fetching Issues

• I See Everything Grey

• Why am I so Laggy?

• Everything is Black

• I See Things Like Stars in the sky

• My CPU is Always at 100%

• Laptop Optimus Issues

• Crashing While Editing or Wearing Mesh

• Edit Rotation Guides Missing

• Problems Navigating in Mouselook

• Viewer Not Responding - Vista/Win7 64-Bit

• I Get a User Account Control (Security) Pop-up

• Frame Load Interrupted by Policy Change

• Copy/Paste No Longer Works

• Clicking on a Link in Firestorm Causes a Crash

• Error Importing itdownload.dll

• Firestorm Flagged as a Virus or Malware

• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Problems

• Linux: Left Mouse Button Stops Working

• Alt-Click Not Working on Ubuntu 12.04

• DNS-Fehler bei Anmeldung

• I Can't Sit on Things

• How to Get Inventory Back

• Gesture Issues

• The "ExDepart Virus"

• Cómo Obtener Ayuda Info. Básica
• Guía de Resolución de Problemas
• Hot LL JIRA Issues Of The Day
• Hot Firestorm JIRA Issues
• Cómo hacer un JIRA
• Cómo contactar con el Soporte

• Grupos In-World de Firestorm
• Clases sobre Firestorm
• Archivo de Phoenix Hour

Nota: Esta documentación está (en su mayoría) actualizada a la Preview 3, o para nuestra Beta pública de Firestorm Mesh

• Notas de lanzamiento de Firestorm
• Guía de Migración de Phoenix a Firestorm

• Diseño de la pantalla de inicio de sesión
• Modos del Visor
• El formato del Visor

• Inventario
• Vestuarios
• Editando la Shape y otras partes del cuerpo
• Perfiles
• Botón Gente Cercana (Radar), Mis Amigos, Mis Grupos y Reciente se encuentran en éste.
• Administrar Grupos
• Contact Sets
• Acerca del Terreno
• Usar la Búsqueda
• Audio y Vídeo en Streaming
• Voice
• Subir texturas, sonidos, etc.
• Gestures

• Guardar la configuración de tus preferencias
• Preferencias
• Panel Preferencias Rápidas (Quick Preferences)
• Caché - ¿Qué es?
• Atajos del Teclado

• (Denunciar una Infracción)Reporte de Abuso

• Físicas del Avatar
• Cliente AO
• LSL Bridge
• Entorno (Parcel Windlight)
• Construir, Editar, Modificar el Terreno(Terraforming)

• Configuración del depurador (Debug Settings)
• Comprendiendo el LAG

(en inglés por el momento)

• Firestorm Preview Interface Customization Tutorial Vid
• Firestorm Public Beta Tutorial Video!
• V1'ify Your Firestorm Experience!
• Contact Sets

Los siguientes videos son acerca del AO de Firestorm:

• Import to AO part 1
• Customize your AO part 2
• Options in AO part 3

Colour Scheme Tutorial

• Repositorio de Firestorm
• Cómo crear un parche
• Cómo ser un buen compañero de Programación

• Licencias de Firestorm
• Política de Privacidad de Firestorm
• Créditos de Firestorm
• Sitio web Oficial

For an introduction to the basics of troubleshooting, please refer to this page.

Phoenix has some video tutorials on YouTube; you may want to visit and bookmark the Phoenix Viewer channel.

• Crash e Problemi Grafici

• Crash durante Installazione o Avvio

• Crash in World

• Fare una Reinstallazione Pulita

• How to Manually Clear Cache

• Manually Clearing Settings

• Problemi dei Media

• Search Doesn't Work, Remains Black

• Voice Related

• Bridge Issues

• Camera is Pointing Wrong

• Firestorm Locks Up on "Initializing VFS"

• I Cannot Log in Unless I Clear Cache First

• Clicking on a SLURL Doesn't Activate Firestorm

• I Dragged Something into the AO Folder and Can't Get it Out!

• My Friends List is Empty!

• The Viewer Seems to Freeze Every So Often

• How do I Get Rid of all this Debug Stuff?

• Issues Related to Shadows

• Large Flexi Prims, Like Tree Fronds, Vanish

• Objects Vanish

• Small Prims Vanish Even when Quite Close

• Making WindLight Setting Persist after Teleport

• When I log in, I see a Blue Screen - I am at 10, 10, 10

• Attachments Detach then Reattach at Login

• Fixing Avatar Issues - Cloud, Ruth, Clothing not rezzing

• I Can't Log In Because It Says I am Already Logged In

• Persistent Typing Animation

• Stuck Inventory Folders Work-Around

• Why Does Teleport Fail so Much?

• Worn Attachment not Showing as Worn in Inventory

• Determining Optimal Bandwidth Setting

• I See Everything Grey

• Why am I so Laggy?

• I See Things Like Stars in the sky

• My CPU is Always at 100%

• I Get a User Account Control (Security) Pop-up

• Clicking on a Link in Firestorm Causes a Crash

• Error Importing itdownload.dll

• Firestorm Flagged as a Virus or Malware

• DNS Fail when Trying to Log in

• I Can't Sit on Things

• How to Get Inventory Back

• Gesture Issues