If things around you remain grey for a long time, this is essentially because the textures have not yet been sent to your viewer. There are a number of possible causes, and solutions or at least work-arounds:

• If you have Webroot SecureAnywhere antivirus installed, refer to this page.

• Power down your router and/or modem. This generally means unplugging it from the power source. Leave them disconnected for at least a full minute before reconnecting. Wait for them to complete the power up sequence, then reboot your computer.

• Teleport out, then back in.

• The region is badly lagged (many avatars present, too many scripts running, etc.) and so the region server is using all its time processing and has very little time left over to deliver textures to you. The best way to cope with this is to reduce the demand you make for textures; in other words, reduce your draw distance, even to 12m or less, and wait until textures have loaded before you increase it again.

• You are experiencing packet loss or, more generally, have a poor network connection. Or your bandwidth slider may be set too high. Bring up the stats bar with Shift-Ctrl-1 and check Packet Loss and Ping Sim. Ideally, packet loss should be 0.0%, and Ping Sim under 200ms.

• Determine optimal bandwidth: refer here.

• HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

• You can also try to have less textures draw all at once by reducing draw distance when you teleport. You can do this manually, or make use of the built in Progressive Draw Distance function.

• Some other program on your computer might be interfering with your viewer's connection to SL, like a firewall or anti-virus. Try disabling them temporarily, to see if things improve. If they do, you have isolated the problem. Whitelisting the viewer and cache folder would probably help.

• It has been reported that the Aero background theme will also lead to textures refusing the rez, due to how much memory this feature consumes. Uninstalling that should help.

If you find that you are crashing frequently, then perhaps the suggestions here will be helpful. Please don't skim the page - read it carefully.

It is important to distinguish between two things….

If a small window appears, saying that you have been logged out of SL, this isn't a crash. Rather, SL is disconnecting you, for one of a number of reasons, including:

• The region you are in is going down;
• During teleport, the SL servers may fail to hand you over to your destination and so log you out; help on that is given here.
• Your network connection has gone down;
• Your network connection has become poor or unreliable and SL has lost contact with your avatar.

Things to try - in order:

• reboot your router/modem, then your computer;
• make sure your bandwidth is set correctly - follow the instructions hereexactly as given;
• shut down any other programs that are making heavy use of your network connection, such as torrents;
• If you use Mac with Yosemite, see if this might be your case.
• If the problems persist still, try changing your DNS to Google, as explained here.

If you are being logged out when you edit appearance, or edit shape, or use the Appearance toolbar button, did you drop items into the Outfits folder that were not created via the Outfits/Appearance window? If so, remove those items.

Firestorm itself has crashed. The remainder of this page offers possible solutions.

• Update your Operating System. See the advice from LL, and the reasons behind it, here.

• (Windows-only) If you are using an ATI (AMD) graphics card, then please refer here for known problems with these cards.

• In Preferences → Graphics → General, reduce Draw Distance by at least half (or more). Also reduce Max # non-impostor avatars.

• Disable VBO: Run Firestorm and before logging in, press Ctrl-P to bring up the Preferences window. Then click on Graphics → Hardware Settings tab. Make sure that “Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects” is not checked.

• 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:
  • RenderVolumeLODFactor should never be set over 4; a good value is between 2 and 3.
  • TextureLoadFullRes should never be enabled.

• (Grids other than SL only!) Disable HTTP Get Textures: Open the preferences window, then click on Graphics → Rendering tab. Make sure “Use HTTP Textures” is not checked. Please clear your cache if you change this setting.

• It is possible that your graphics settings are set higher than your computer can handle. To see if this is the case, go to Preferences → Graphics, and click on Reset (the circular arrow to the right of the quality slider). After doing this, you may still need to reduce Draw Distance and Max # non-impostor avatars, as mentioned above.

• Another thing you can try is: Develop → World → Dump Region Object Cache, then relog. (The Develop menu is revealed with Ctrl-Alt-Q, if you cannot see it.) This sometimes also helps deal with odd texture issues; it may need to be done several times.

• If clicking on a link or SLURL in Firestorm causes an instant crash: do you have AVG 2011 installed? If so, it probably flagged SLPlugin as malware. See here for more on this.

• If you are crashing when you try to upload a texture, please try disabling VBO, as described above. Also, if you are on Windows and running Microsoft SkyDrive, prefer refer here. If you are on a Mac, this workaround may fix the problem.

• If the above tips do not help, you might benefit from a cache clear or viewer reinstall.

• If you find that a full manual cache clear allows you to log in, and you crash unless you do this, then there is a good chance that you have one or more problems with certain inventory items; please see this page for how to deal with this.

Webroot offers an internet security software package that is meant to protect your Windows PC or Mac computer from threats coming over the internet. However, this software is known to cause severe issues with Second Life viewers (not just Firestorm). These include:

• copy/paste failing to work (see here for more info on that)
• flashing screen
• very slow rez
• viewer freezes
• crash on logout
• “rainbow” textures all over the place

For the last problem, please refer to FIRE-17661 where Seth posts the result of a ticket he filed with Webroot, in which they offer a download to use.

Some of the problems above may be mitigated as follows:

1. In the viewer, go to the Advanced menu at the top (should this not be visible, press Ctrl-Alt-D)
2. Click on Show Debug Settings
3. Type in: HttpPipelining - set the value to False, then close the Debug Settings window (do NOT click Copy or Reset to default)
4. Wipe cache as explained on this page

The underlying problem here is that Webroot is blocking certain types of network connections, therefore any real fix needs to come from them.

A possible workaround solution has been suggested by Webroot themselves, and that is to turn off “identity protection” while using SL. This is a newly received suggestion and as yet widespread results are unknown but for some users it has helped.

This section covers issues related to audio, video and some aspects of search.

• For situations where you cannot hear audio, be it streaming music, or the audio from a movie/video, the first thing to do is check that:
  • streaming music and/or media are enabled in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds;
  • volumes for music and media are not at minimum;
  • audio is configured correctly in your operating system (ie, Windows, linux, OSX), that sounds is going to the correct device (ie, speakers or headset), and so on;
  • You have not blocked the stream/video; check Preferences → Sound & Media → Media → Manage Media Sites.
  • for streaming music, test the music URL in your external web browser, to make sure that the URL actually works.

• HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

• In Preferences → Sound & Media → Sounds, make sure the “Enabled” checkbox to the right of the “Media” slider is checked
  (For audio, check “Streaming Music”)
• In Preferences → Sound & Media → Media, check “Allow inworld scripts to play media”
• Make sure the issue is not with the specific television you are using, by attempting to view videos on a television that plays video normally for other Firestorm users.
• Make sure that “Enable plugins” is ticked in Preferences → Network & Files -> Connection, else Flash Player or Quicktime can not be executed, and you may see a message saying: Adobe Flash Player or an HTML5 supported browser is required for video playback.

• Relog Firestorm and open the Search window
• Go to your computer processes and look for “slplugin.exe”
  • For Windows users, go to Task Manager → Processes Tab
  • For Mac users, go to Activity Monitor → My Processes (usually by default, but you can check top right drop down)
  • For Linux users, go to Command Terminal, and type “ps aux”
  • You may see four instances of the slplugin running (that is normal behavior)
  • If you do not see any instances of slplugin running, that is the cause of media failing
• If slplugin is not running, disable all firewall and virus protection (including anti-virus software and windows or other operating system firewalls)
• Relog and attempt video playback again
• If it works, you will need to stop your firewall/virus protection from blocking the slplugin file by granting it appropriate permissions in your firewall/virus protection software
• NOTE: If you have several viewers installed, you will have to allow to each one access through your firewall, as well as to SLPlugin for each one.
• If all of the above does not resolve the issue, you can try downloading the latest SL Viewer 2 viewer and replacing your Firestorm slplugin file with the one from Viewer 2.

• Windows users:
  • In order to play Flash format videos (e.g., YouTube videos), you must have the Opera & Chromium version of the Adobe Flash plugin installed. Unless you already have this specific version of Flash installed already, you will need to get the Opera & Chromium Flash plugin from Adobe.

• Linux users
  • You need to have the pepperflash plugin installed, which can be satisfied by installing pepperflashplugin-nonfree for Chromium

• Mac users
  • Mac users currently need the Safari & Firefox version of Adobe Flash plugin installed. Download it from Adobe.

• NOTE: If you experience graphics driver crashes on nVidia cards when viewing Flash media (for example Youtube) both in-world and on a website and/or severe drops in your GPU clock mhz on any card then you will need to disable hardware acceleration on Flash Player. To do this, go to Youtube and Pick any video. Right click the video play area to bring up the options and follow the instructions here.

Quicktime is bundled along with CEF in this version of Firestorm.

If you have issues watching movies (as opposed to YouTube videos) it might help to clear your QuickTime cache:

• Open the QuickTime player
• Click on Edit → Preferences → QuickTime Preferences → Advanced Tab → Empty cache
• Click on Apply then Ok and reboot your computer

• If YouTube videos suddenly will not play, and you just get a white screen, go to Preferences→ Privacy -> General, and click on Clear History, then try again.
• See also the Flash section, above.

Go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds and make sure the volume sliders for streaming music and media are not all to the left and that there is no mute symbol (red no entry sign) on the speaker icon next to those. Make sure the Master Volume is not all to the left.

Check that Sound Source rolloff distance (Media tab) is correct; set back to default, if you changed it (5m and 30 respectively for min and max).

Go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds and check that you have the Sounds and UI sliders up high enough and that there is no mute symbol (red no entry sign) on the speaker icon next to those.

Go to the top menu bar→ Advanced → Use Plugin Read Thread, and disable it, if it is enabled - or vice versa. (If you cannot see Advanced on the top menu, press Ctrl-Alt-D.)

If that doesn't help, first ensure that you have your bandwidth set correctly. Also, test the audio stream in your regular media player, and/or try a different audio stream in-world.

Please ensure that you have the most recent version of Flash for Safari installed. You can get this via the normal update process, or from Adobe.

For streaming music on OS X 10.9 Mavericks, please refer to this page.

Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Firestorm for Linux require 32-bit libraries to function. See this page for a link to your Linux flavor to verify you have all the needed audio-related packages installed and to troubleshoot stream issues.

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.

• Firestorm 64-bit

• Crashing During Install or Startup

• Crashing While Running Firestorm

• Login Failures

• Texture Discarded Due to Insufficent Memory

• Graphics Glitches and Crashes

• Updating the viewer

• How to Manually Clear Cache

• Clearing settings manually

• Media Related

• Search Doesn't Work, Remains Black

• Voice Related

• Bridge Issues

• Camera is Pointing Wrong

• Friends/Groups Detached from Conversations

• Nearby Chat Detached from Conversations

• Firestorm Locks Up on "Initializing VFS"

• Hands Flickering

• I Can't See Worn Mesh

• I Cannot Log in Unless I Clear Cache First

• Clicking on a SLURL Doesn't Activate Firestorm

• AO Folder issues

• Finding a Missing Window

• 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

• Restore to Last Position - Workaround

• My avatar won't move

• My saved outfit is empty

• Attachments Detach then Reattach at Login

• Current Outfit Folder Corruption

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

• I Am Missing Inventory

• Help! I'm Wearing my Entire Inventory!

• Failed to Find Item in Database

• 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

• I am Stuck Running

• Why Does Teleport Fail so Much?

• Worn Attachment not Showing as Worn in Inventory

• HTTP Inventory Issues

• 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

• Intel Graphics Issues

• My CPU is Always at 100%

• Laptop Dual Graphic Card Issues

• Crashing While Editing or Wearing Mesh

• Edit Rotation Guides Missing

• Problems Navigating in Mouselook

• Windows 10 Issues

• Webroot and SL Viewers

• Viewer Not Responding - Vista/Win7 64-Bit

• "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" error in Windows

• 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

• Failed to Decode Login Credentials

• Firestorm Flagged as a Virus or Malware

• No Mouse Cursor - Vorpx Incompatibility

• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Problems

• Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks Problems

• Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

• Crash on Upload

• Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan

• Linux: Left Mouse Button Stops Working

• Alt-Click Not Working on Ubuntu

• Linux: Wrong Browser being opened

• 32-bit Firestorm on 64-bit Linux

• How to Minimize Firestorm when Running Fullscreen in Linux

• Screen Tearing with Ubuntu 14.04 (or derived, like Mint 17)

• Chat Lag

• "Couldn't convert the image to jpeg2000"

• DNS Fail when Trying to Log in

• I Can't Sit on Things

• How to Get Inventory Back

• Logging in at 10,10,10

• The "ExDepart Virus"

• Offline Instant Messages not delivered to email

• Web Profiles Not Displaying Properly

• Deleting Stored Passwords

If you have certain Intel HD graphics, and have upgraded your PC to Windows 10, your graphics card will not be fully supported by Intel. If you have this issue, you will be unable to log in. You will get the following error dialog box:

This is not a function of the viewer, but instead is a function of the drivers provided by Intel for your computer. However we have developed a workaround that should help most users with this issue continue to have the ability to use the Firestorm viewer.

1. Verify that your graphics card is one of the affected versions. You can find a table of affected versions here: Graphics Drivers Supported Operating Systems but most frequently we have seen Intel HD 2000 and Intel HD 3000. You should be able to verify your graphics in the system info of your computer.
2. Below, select the zip file that is correct for your download, either the 32 bit Havok version or the 32 bit OpenSim version, download it to your computer. You will need to unzip the file and save it on your computer in a location you will remember.
3. On your computer, open File Explorer. (If it isn't on your taskbar you may need to use the search to find it). When you open it, select the View tab at the top of the page and check the box on the right had side that says File Name Extensions.
4. In File Explorer, navigate to This PC then Local Disk (C:) (or the location you normally download Firestorm if it differs) and then navigate to Program Files (x86). Open Program Files (x86), locate the Firestorm folder, and open it. In the Firestorm folder, locate the Firestorm-Release.exe file and delete it.
5. Replace it with the Firestorm.exe file that was in the zipped folder you downloaded from the website.

You should now be able to run Firestorm on your PC.

• Havok SL
  SHA: 26DDB29943DA9FD22193E55270D1244F4E39FD5A
• 32-bit non-Havok OS
  SHA: 13CC7B1462E9DE99DC85A8EF0CE62BC992381427

• 32-bit Havok SL
  SHA: 90E5B454C06BED06A7A180ED60DCC2B49FFD23B1
• 32-bit non-Havok OS
  SHA: 75DF3EABA2979921DEAC2361A53C4F49788FAAC4

• 32-bit Havok SL
  SHA: 3A4DE14F726EF77A9D52B28FD63E7CA397136CC7
• 32-bit non-Havok OS
  SHA: 32664BFA93824F3F9CF4EAE70C67551B379DF0D6

The #Firestorm → AO folder is protected; this means it cannot be deleted, nor can items in it be removed.

If you have inadvertently dragged something into this folder (or a subfolder), then proceed as follows:

• from the top menu bar select the Advanced menu, then Debug Settings - or press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S (if the Advanced menu is not visible, enable it with Ctrl-Alt-D).
• Type in ProtectAOFolders, and set the value to FALSE.
• Now drag the item(s) out of the protected folder and into to the intended location.
• Access Debug Settings again, and revert the value of ProtectAOFolders to TRUE.

If you had a functioning FS AO and it is now empty, it is possible that the #Firestorm → #AO folder has moved to another location.

To find the moved #AO folder, do an inventory search either for “#AO”, obviously the simplest way or in case that doesn't work, for one of the known animation names. The search will reveal both the original and any link. The link will hopefully reveal the location of the moved #AO folder. Check to see that the moved folder contains all the expected subfolders and animations.

To move the full #AO folder back into the correct location,

• Unprotect the new, empty #Firestorm → #AO folder by going to Advanced menu → Show Debug Settings → look for ProtectAOFolders and set to False
• Delete the new, empty #Firestorm → #AO folder
• Move the full #AO folder back into the #Firestorm folder
• Protect the full #AO folder by going to Advanced menu → Show Debug Settings → look for ProtectAOFolders and set to True (note: if this doesn't work, a relog may be needed, followed by setting it to True)

Key = Key Sequence

Unfortunately, this type of issue is more often related to asset server problems than the problems on the missing inventory page, and unlike caching and loading problems, asset server problems are often not reversible. You may notice that when Linden Lab posts grid status problems, they will often warn not to rez no-copy items during that period of time. This is why. Nonetheless, there are a few things you can try.

• First, check your Lost & Found folder in your inventory for the item. The object may have been returned to you without your knowing. Check your Objects folder, as well.

• Second, relog. Sometimes, this is all that is necessary for missing items to show up in your inventory again.

• Third, go to point 0,0,0 in the region or, if you don't have access to it because it is part of someone else's private property, ask that parcel or region owner to look. Sometimes, rezzed items will be deposited there. To get to point 0,0,0:
  • Either type “gtp 0 0 0” into local chat (without the quotes) and hit Enter;
  • Or open your mini-map (top menu, World → Mini-Map, or Ctrl-Shift-M) and fly or walk to the far southwest corner of the region.

• Fourth, try searching for the item using Area Search:
  • Go to top menu, World → Area Search.
  • Click on the “Find” tab and type part of the name of the item into the “Name” field. Click “Search.”
  • You will be taken to the “List” tab. If you see the name of the object, double-click it in the list and follow the red beacon to the object.
  • Moving your avatar or camera around can help the Area Search detect items that are not detected initially.

• Fifth, if the region belongs to you, you can ask Linden Lab to roll the region back to a point before the item disappeared.

• Sixth, if you have another viewer installed, log in with it to see if the missing item shows up in your inventory there. If it does, then try the suggestions in the “If You Are Missing Items in Your Inventory” section above. If it does not show up in your inventory in either viewer, then Second Life may have lost the item.

Please note: Viewers play a minor part in voice functionality. The bulk of voice support is given by the external application called SLVoice, which is made by the SL voice provider, Vivox. Voice failures are almost always due to one of the following reasons:

• Your ISP is throttling or blocking the voice service;
• failure of the Vivox service;
• voice issues on the region you are on;
• voice being throttled by bandwidth set incorrectly - please check it by following the instructions here;
• voice hardware (mic, headset) not configured correctly in your operating system settings;
• voice hardware not configured correctly in the viewer;
• another application has your voice hardware in use (example, Skype);
• your anti virus software has “mangled” the voice application; see here.
• your firewall is blocking slvoice. Add slvoice to your firewall's exclusion/allow list.

Due to the many different versions of each operating system (Windows, linux distros, Mac OSx's), it is very difficult to give specifics for each one. Nonetheless, make sure that your operating system is correctly configured for voice: that voice is going to your headset (or speakers, as you prefer), and that your mic is enabled and configured.

• Go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds. Find the Voice Chat slider and make sure it is not all to the left. Try increasing the volume.
• Make sure that Voice chat is enabled on that preferences tab.
• go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice. Click on Audio Device Settings. For Input and Output, use the dropdowns to select your voice devices (headset, microphone, whatever you use). It is best not to leave these at Default.
• Close Preferences and locate the Mic button on the button bar. Click the Lock checkbox then the actual button, and try speaking (hopefully, you went to Voice Echo Canyon so you can test).

If voice still does not work, then continue working through this page.

If you find that voice cuts in and out, particularly right after a TP, and at the same time, you notice that things are not rezzing in for you very well (avatars, objects, etc), then the likely cause is that your router is being “overwhelmed” with texture transfers. So reboot your router/modem, and then your computer, and see if the problem is solved.

You can also try adjusting your bandwidth as explained here.

If that does not help, then proceed with the section below.

Chances are good that the problem lies with the SL servers or the voice provider, Vivox. Still, there are things you can try:

• Shut down all applications that use, or can use, voice - like Skype, etc. Then relog.

• What sometimes helps to get voice working is disabling voice in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice, hitting apply, waiting a minute and then enabling voice and hitting apply. When these methods fail (assuming voice usually works for you) it is usually the Vivox voice servers that are the problem.

• If this does not work at your current location, go to a region where other people are able to use voice at this time. One possibility is Firestorm Social, but any region where voice is known to be functioning is fine. Disable voice in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice. Relog, using the last location selection on your login screen. Wait a couple of minutes. Reenable voice. Wait another couple of minutes (in other words, give the connection time to be established). If voice comes on, then the problem may have been the region you were in before. Was voice disabled there? If not, a region restart might solve the problem.

• Go to Preferences → Network & Files -> Connection and reduce your bandwidth setting to 500 (if it is not already set there). Repeat the above step to toggle voice off and back on. See here for more information on setting your bandwidth properly, but bear in mind that lower levels than those calculated there may be necessary for troubleshooting purposes.

• Try a relog, or even a reboot of the computer.

• Sometimes device settings can reset, so check in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice→ Audio Device Settings, to be sure that the input and output are set correctly.

• HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

• Does your headset/microphone work outside of SL? ie when using Skype, Yahoo or MSN

• Does your headset/microphone work in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice→ Audio Device Settings?

• Is your voice chat volume turned up and not muted?

• Is the SLVoice.exe (simply SLVoice on Mac) that is in the Firestorm folder in the exceptions/allowed list for your firewall? If your firewall is turned off, turn it on and add the SLVoice.exe (or SLVoice) anyway.

• Check the bandwidth you are actually getting and what you have set in Preferences → Network & Files → Connection. Please refer to this page for specifics.

• Go to Advanced → Debug Settings, and in the window that opens, type: Cmdlinedisablevoice - then ensure this is set to FALSE.

Some have issues with voice on Firestorm - specifically, “stuttering”, or SLVoice crashing when you unplug a USB device. The only work-around currently is to swap out the voice files.

• Method One:
  To this end, download this file; save it to your hard drive. Make sure you do not have Firestorm running. Then extract the files to your Firestorm install folder. (For Firestorm 32-bit viewer, this is typically located at C:\Program Files\Firestorm on 32 bit Windows, and C:\Program Files (x86)\Firestorm on Windows 64-bit. For Firestorm 64-bit Viewer, this is typically located at C:\Program Files\Firestorm.) When prompted, allow the replacement of existing files.

• Method 2 - Firestorm 4.7.3 Only:
  Download Firestorm 4.6.9 from here. If you current have FS 64-bit, get FS 4.6.9 32-bit - and vice versa. Go into your “computer” and find the the 4.6.9 Version Firestorm you downloaded.
  Copy the files below and replace them in your 4.7.3 Firestorm install folder:
  ca-bundle.crt
  ortp.dll
  SLVoice.exe
  vivoxoal.dll
  vivoxplatform.dll
  vivoxsdk.dll

Try disabling compatibility mode, if enabled:

• Locate your desktop shortcut for Firestorm
• Right click on the icon and select Properties
• Select the Compatibility tab
• Find “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” if it is set then disable this
• Make sure “Run as Administrator” is enabled (if this is greyed out, then you're probably already running as administrator, so you can ignore this step).
• Click Apply.
• Now log back into the viewer, and see if voice works (do you have the white dot over your head?). If not, go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice and disable voice; wait a few moments, then re-enable. ¹⁾

On Windows 7, if you find yourself being able to talk but not hear what others say, then a possible solution is to use the sound drivers from Vista. (This needs further confirmation.)

Check that slvoice.exe is not muted in the speaker/headphones icon (located in the notification area) → mixer.

Every linux distro is different; and each distro may have more than one window manager to further complicate things. So tips can't be “absolute”; you will need to experiment and see what works for you. The following have been suggested by some as effective. But first….

In the Firestorm install directory, there's a text file (originally from LL) with tips on getting voice to work in linux. If you haven't read that, then you can try to see if it helps.

• Make sure you have ALSA and/or FMOD available. FMOD is supplied with Firestorm, normally. If you look at Help → About Firestorm, you should see a line that resembles this:
  Audio Driver Version: OpenAL, version 1.1 ALSOFT 1.11.753 / OpenAL Community / OpenAL Soft: PulseAudio Software
  If that says “none” then you have no audio driver available to Firestorm and need to install one.

• Edit the firestorm shell script and remove the #. That will force LL to use FMOD rather than ALSA. Some say this is how to get voice working.

#export LL_BAD_OPENAL_DRIVER=x

• Some swear that the problem is PulseAudio, so you can try to remove that from your system. Be warned, however, that this could cause more problems than it solves. Make sure you remove only Pulse and not half the OS.
• Be sure to have the correct devices select in Firestorm for voice:
  
  Preferences → Sound & Media → Voice → Audio Device Settings (button) … input and output may not work if left at default; they may need to go to a specific device like “ALSA Capture on [device name]”.

Below are results for selected linux distros, based on input from Phoenix and Firestorm users. This will be updated as more information becomes available.

• ubuntu 14.04 64 bit + FS64: The following comand installs a few 32-bit libs and voice works after. Maybe you need fewer 32-bit libs but that needs further investigation.
  Apparently, arch requires these as well - or some of them - though the exact lib name may be different.

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio:i386 libidn11:i386 libuuid1:i386 libstdc++6:i386

If you are unable to connect to voice and you are also having problems with teleporting and/or loading your friends list, perhaps along with other things, then see the “Mac-specific” section of this page for instructions and more explanation.

Some Mountain Lion users experience a problem with voice output, while input works fine (that is, you can hear but you can't speak). To fix this, open the voice preferences for your viewer (Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice in Firestorm). Click the device settings button and select “built-in microph” as the audio input device and click OK. (OK is important, Apply doesn't work.) Reopen Preferences and go back to the device settings button to ensure you're getting sound in on the mic.

Shadows add a lot more realism to Second Life, and as a result, many people wish to enable them. Sadly, however, there are major issues with shadows, for many people.

Shadow code in SL viewers is still experimental. In general, it does not work reliably, in some cases can have unexpected and even bizarre side effects - or for some, it will not work at all.

If you wish to try shadows, then you need to have at least medium to high end video card. They really tax the GPU (Graphics Processor). You need to have Advanced Lighting Model enabled in Prefs > Graphics > General; then you can enable shadows. Once you do, keep an eye open for side effects. For example:

• invisiprims will not work when ALM is enabled
• some will notice that sculpted prims with textures that have transparency simply will not render
• you may see white edges round any textures which have transparency
• snapshots may fail to show all the objects in a scene
• having VBO and shadows both enabled may cause you to crash.

You will also find yourself lagging a lot more than usual, unless you have a very high end system.

Some ATI/AMD graphics drivers may not render shadows correctly. See this page: ATI drivers that are known to work.

If you find that you are crashing frequently, then perhaps the suggestions here will be helpful. Please don't skim the page - read it carefully.

It is important to distinguish between two things….

If a small window appears, saying that you have been logged out of SL, this isn't a crash. Rather, SL is disconnecting you, for one of a number of reasons, including:

• The region you are in is going down;
• During teleport, the SL servers may fail to hand you over to your destination and so log you out; help on that is given here.
• Your network connection has gone down;
• Your network connection has become poor or unreliable and SL has lost contact with your avatar.

Things to try - in order:

• reboot your router/modem, then your computer;
• make sure your bandwidth is set correctly - follow the instructions hereexactly as given;
• shut down any other programs that are making heavy use of your network connection, such as torrents;
• If you use Mac with Yosemite, see if this might be your case.
• If the problems persist still, try changing your DNS to Google, as explained here.

If you are being logged out when you edit appearance, or edit shape, or use the Appearance toolbar button, did you drop items into the Outfits folder that were not created via the Outfits/Appearance window? If so, remove those items.

Firestorm itself has crashed. The remainder of this page offers possible solutions.

• Update your Operating System. See the advice from LL, and the reasons behind it, here.

• (Windows-only) If you are using an ATI (AMD) graphics card, then please refer here for known problems with these cards.

• In Preferences → Graphics → General, reduce Draw Distance by at least half (or more). Also reduce Max # non-impostor avatars.

• Disable VBO: Run Firestorm and before logging in, press Ctrl-P to bring up the Preferences window. Then click on Graphics → Hardware Settings tab. Make sure that “Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects” is not checked.

• 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:
  • RenderVolumeLODFactor should never be set over 4; a good value is between 2 and 3.
  • TextureLoadFullRes should never be enabled.

• (Grids other than SL only!) Disable HTTP Get Textures: Open the preferences window, then click on Graphics → Rendering tab. Make sure “Use HTTP Textures” is not checked. Please clear your cache if you change this setting.

• It is possible that your graphics settings are set higher than your computer can handle. To see if this is the case, go to Preferences → Graphics, and click on Reset (the circular arrow to the right of the quality slider). After doing this, you may still need to reduce Draw Distance and Max # non-impostor avatars, as mentioned above.

• If you have Shadows turned on, try turning them off. See this page for more side effects of shadows.

• Another thing you can try is: Develop → World → Dump Region Object Cache, then relog. (The Develop menu is revealed with Ctrl-Alt-Q, if you cannot see it.) This sometimes also helps deal with odd texture issues; it may need to be done several times.

• If clicking on a link or SLURL in Firestorm causes an instant crash: do you have AVG 2011 installed? If so, it probably flagged SLPlugin as malware. See here for more on this.

• If you are crashing when you try to upload a texture, please try disabling VBO, as described above. Also, if you are on Windows and running Microsoft SkyDrive, prefer refer here. If you are on a Mac, this workaround may fix the problem.

• If the above tips do not help, you might benefit from a cache clear or viewer reinstall.

• If you find that a full manual cache clear allows you to log in, and you crash unless you do this, then there is a good chance that you have one or more problems with certain inventory items; please see this page for how to deal with this.

For instructions for Phoenix, please refer here.

Some anti-virus programs will incorrectly flag a viewer - or necessary components of a viewer - as a virus or threat. They may remove the suspected part completely, rendering all or part of the viewer non-functional. There is nothing we can do about this. However, it should be possible for you to tell your anti-virus that the viewer is safe; you will need to whitelist the viewer program as well as some components.

The following is a list of anti-virus software and how to whitelist. Naturally we cannot provide instructions for all existing anti-virus software; please consult the software manual for the specific program you use.

You should whitelist:

• the viewer install folder
  • inside this, the viewer itself (firestorm.exe), slplugin.exe, slvoice.exe and llceflib_host.exe (for FS 4.7.7 and later).
• the viewer cache folder

In its default location, the folder is hidden on most OSs. To find it, you will need to show hidden folders. Now you need to locate the settings folder:

• Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Firestorm
• Windows Vista/7/8: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Firestorm

Here are the steps to follow to reinstall and whitelist a viewer in such as way that the anti-virus program doesn't “mangle” the viewer yet again:

1. Uninstall the viewer normally.
2. Disable the anti-virus software completely (in a few cases, this requires rebooting to make sure that the AV is not running anymore).
3. Reinstall the viewer, but make sure you do not install it back to the default folder suggested; install to a new folder. This step is vital.
4. In your anti-virus program, whitelist the following, per the instructions below (or better, consult the manual for your anti-virus software):
   • the viewer install folder
     • inside this, the viewer itself (firestorm.exe), slplugin.exe, slvoice.exe and llceflib_host.exe (for FS 4.7.7 and later).
   • the viewer cache folder
5. Run the viewer to ensure that it is working correctly; do a test of search and voice to ensure that both work, checking that the respective plugins get loaded. Log out of the viewer.
6. Re-enable your anti-virus software and run the viewer again, repeating the tests above.

• Open the Avast User Interface
• Click Real-time shields
• Click File system shield
• Click Expert Settings
• Click Exclusions
• Click Add
• Click Browse and navigate to the Firestorm install folder
• Click OK
• Repeat for the Firestorm cache folder
• Click OK all the way out

• Open the AVG user interface.
• Click Tools→Advance Settings.
• Resident Shield→Exceptions.
• The Add the program (or file, directory) you wish to be excluded from scans.

Please refer to this page.

(derrived from https://community.f-secure.com/t5/Security-for-PC/How-do-I-exclude-a-file-or/ta-p/15398)

• Open Computer Security.
• On the main page of Computer Security, click Settings.
• Select Computer Security > Virus and spyware scanning.
• Select Other settings > Manual scanning.
• Click the Exclude files from the scan link. The Exclude from scanning dialog is displayed.
• Select the Objects tab.
• Select the Exclude objects (files, folders…) check box.
• Click Add.
• Navigate to and select the Firestorm install folder
• Click Add again
• Navigate to and select the Firestorm cache folder
• Click OK to close the Exclude from scanning dialog.

If Gatekeeper prevents you from opening Firestorm, there is a simple workaround: See “How to open an app from a unidentified developer and exempt it from Gatekeeper” on this page. Once you have allowed Firestorm to open via this method, Gatekeeper will not flag it on subsequent launches (until you reinstall Firestorm again).

For a longer-term method, please visit here for a tutorial on whitelisting using the Gatekeeper software.

In order to create an exclusion rule:

• Open application settings window.
• Select Protection on the left.
• Click the Trusted Zone button in the Exclusions block.
• Go to the tab Exclusion rules and click Add.
• Select an exclusion type in the Properties field: Object and/or Threat type.
  • Object
    Click select object and choose a file, folder or a mask to exclude.
  • Select a Component in the corresponding field. The rule will apply to the selected component.
  • Threat type. Click enter threat type to select a file, folder or a mask to exclude.

Rules can apply to the following protection components:

• Virus scan,
• File Anti-Virus,
• Mail Anti-Virus (Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations 6.0.4.x only),
• Proactive Defense (Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations 6.0.4.x only),
• Web Anti-Virus (Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations 6.0.4.x only).

A scan if a disk or folder containing excluded objects scans the entire disk/folder except the excluded objects. Yet you can force scan excluded objects from the contextual menu (by right-clicking).

Also you can create an exclusion rule from within a report window:

• Right-click the report object you want excluded.
• Choose the option Add to Trusted Zone.

An Exclusion rule window will open. Make sure that you are satisfied with the new exclusion rule settings. Object name and threat type fields are assigned automatically on the basis of the report data. Click OK to create the rule.

For Win 10 (possibly also Windows 8.x):

• Open Settings and in the search field at the top right enter defender
• Click the Windows Defender Settings option.
• Exclude the cache
  • Click Add an Exclusion
  • Click Exclude a folder
  • Click in the address bar and type %LOCALAPPDATA% and press Enter
  • Click the Firestorm folder
  • Click the Exclude this folder button
  • Repeat this if you have more than one Firestorm folder (64-bit and 32-bit, for example)
• Exclude the viewer executables
  • Click the Exclude a .exe, .com or .scr process button
  • Navigate to C:\Program Files\Firestorm-Release64
  • Click Firestorm-bin
  • Click the Exclude This file button
  • Repeat this for SLPlugin and SLVoice - and llceflib_host (for FS 4.7.7 and later).
  • Repeat this for 32-bit Firestorm ( C:\Program Files (x86) )

Add exclusion to Auto-Protect and Risk scan

• Start Norton 360.
• Click Settings.
• Click Antivirus Protection.
• On the Scans and Risks tab, under Exclusion/Low Risks, click Configure next to Scan Exclusions.
• Under Scan Exclusions, click Add.
• Browse and select the disk drive or folder or file you would like to exclude and click OK. If you want to include subfolders within the folder, check Include Subfolders.
• Under Auto-Protect Exclusions, click Add.
• Browse and select the disk drive or folder or file you would like to exclude and click OK. If you want to include subfolders within the folder, check Include Subfolders.
• Click Apply > OK.
• Click Apply > Close

Norton Internet Security includes a feature called Download Intelligence. This works such that the user community reports downloads as good or bad. While this may be very helpful, it can also be unfairly detrimental to programs, especially when they are updated as they are then treated as totally new.

Therefore, if you use Download Intelligence, you are urged to disable it before attempting to download any of our viewers, in order to avoid them being incorrectly reported as infected with a virus. Refer to this page for instructions.

• Click on the “Antivirus” section of the UI.
• Click on “Advanced Settings” (bottom of the panel current version)
• Click on “Exclusions” tab
• Choose “Add”, then navigate to your Firestorm installation folder and put a check in the box to the left of slplugin.exe (and llceflib_host.exe for FS 4.7.7 and later), and everything else you want to exclude. Once you've checked something, the “exclude” button at the bottom of the panel is enabled. Click it when you've finished checking off everything you want to exclude.
• Click “OK” at the bottom of the “Exclusions” tab.

See this page for additional Panda tips for whitelisting files and folders: http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/downloads/docs/product/help/is/2012/en/709.htm The page is out of date but the methods may still work.

• Right click PC Tools icon in taskbar → Open
• Go to Settings → Global action list
• Click “Add”, choose “File” & browse to your Firestorm installation folder & choose slplugin.exe - and llceflib_host.exe (for FS 4.7.7 and later).
• This will add the plugin(s) to the global whitelist.

To date (August 2015), there is no way to whitelist the entire cache folder in WebRoot. Therefore WebRoot may continue to cause severe problems including slow rezzing and viewer freezing.

If you test with WebRoot off and find your SL experience greatly improved, the only suggestion we have is to choose another antivirus program.

Some more more info on Webroot and the problems it has been known to cause, see this page.

For additional information:

• https://community.webroot.com/t5/Webroot-for-Business/how-to-set-file-and-folder-exclusions-in-the-webroot-console/td-p/189775
• https://community.webroot.com/t5/Webroot-SecureAnywhere-Antivirus/How-to-exclude-a-folder-from-being-scanned-in-the-latest-WSA-AV/td-p/78063

There are different kinds of problems with missing inventory that can take place; those that are controllable at the viewer or computer end are generally reversible. Problems caused by the Second Life asset server are not always fixable.

If items that you rezzed out in-world are missing, then refer to this page instead.

• Check that your inventory has fully loaded. Click on the Recent tab and wait for the inventory counter to stop fetching. When it's done, it will simply show the number of items, without the word “Fetching….”

If the number of items appears correct, but not everything is showing:

• Reset your inventory filters. On most viewer skins, this means clicking the Gear menu at the bottom of your inventory and selecting “Reset Filters.” On Vintage skin (this is what you're using if you logged in with Phoenix Mode) or Ansastorm skin, click Inventory → Reset Filters in the inventory menu.
  Note: if you are looking for Marketplace items using Inventory search, and they are not showing, ensure that you have the Received items folder shown in inventory, rather than as a button: Preferences → User Interface → Interface Windows → Show the Received Items folder in normal inventory. Or, click the Received button to see what items are in there.

If your inventory is still not loading fully, then the issue may be a network or connection problem. General suggestions for problems that may be connection-related are:

• If you are on a wireless connection and are able to wire it in, do so.
• Reboot your router/modem, leaving it unplugged and unpowered for a minimum of two minutes before powering it back up again.
• If you have access to a different connection, try connecting your computer to it temporarily.
• If the inventory is still not fetching all the way, view our page on bandwidth and speedtests to make sure your bandwidth is set optimally in the viewer. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, we have found that lower bandwidth settings usually allow for more reliable inventory loading than higher settings.

• HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

• Please download the official SL viewer, install it, log in on it and see if the items show up there. If they do, then the problem is probably either loading or caching in Firestorm, and you can follow the set of suggestions below under “Advanced Method: Inventory Copy from LL V3.” If the items don't show up in any viewer, then there is a good chance they're missing from the asset server, which means the problem may not be fixable.
  

If your inventory count still looks lower than it should be or stalls in the middle of fetching items, then:

• First, teleport to the Phoenix/Firestorm Support parcel or an empty water region, such as Cyclops. Drop your draw distance low (for example, to 32 or lower) to minimize the work the viewer is trying to do outside of loading your inventory.

• Second, in your inventory, type letters into the search filter. It doesn't matter what letters; the purpose is to prod the search into finding more items. If the fetch stalls again, pick a different letter.

• Third, try clearing your entire cache manually, as explained here. Please make sure you do it manually, not via the in-viewer clear-cache button.
  • Advanced Note: You can clear only your inventory cache, rather than the whole thing; this minimizes the amount of excess data you would need to download on top of your inventory data when you log back in.
    On recent versions of Firestorm, open Preferences -> Network & Files -> Directories, then click the Clear Inventory Cache button, then relog.
    On older versions, you will have to clear inventory cache manually, as follows:
    • Go to Preferences → Network & Files; beside Cache Location, click on Open. A window opens showing the contexts of the cache folder.
    • Leave that window open, and log out of Firestorm.
    • Make sure the folder is set to show file extensions.
    • Locate the file whose name ends in .inv.gz, and delete that file.
    • Log back in - preferably to one of the locations given above: at the log in screen, you can select log in location; type in one of the region names indicated above.
• Additional notes: If clearing inventory cache does not fix the problem the first time you try it, then it probably won't work on additional attempts, so don't keep doing it (though multiple relogs without cache clears may help).

• If the above steps have not worked for you, continue on to the next step:

Start by finding your avatar key while logged into Firestorm or another viewer that displays it - see the figure to the right; the UUID is highlighted in green.

It is a string of letters and numbers that appears in your legacy-style profile, though the exact location will vary because different skin options display it differently. If you use web profiles, you will need to switch into the legacy profile to find it. (In Firestorm, this is in Preferences -> User Interface -> Interface Windows→ Use web profiles by default.) You can return to the web profile style afterward. When you find your key, just copy it down somewhere.

Now you will need the latest release version of the SL viewer, so if you don't have it installed yet, download and install it. Then, log into V3 and get your inventory loaded in that viewer. This might work with any other viewer, as well, but V3 is the only one we've tested with. Once your inventory is loaded there, log out.

Locate your Second Life cache folder and your Firestorm cache folder on your hard drive. Our clearing cache page will help you locate where that is (just replace “Firestorm” with “SecondLife” in the path name. Don't clear either cache! Just use the paths shown to find the folders.

In the Second Life cache folder, find the file named with your avatar key and ending in “inv.gz”. Drop or copy this file into your Firestorm cache folder. Allow it to replace the one there.

Log into Firestorm and check to see if your inventory is there.

Avoid clearing cache or you may need to do this process again.

Please note: Under normal circumstances, you should not share cache between viewers because it can cause other weird problems. This suggestion should not be read as an indication that setting your cache in different viewers to the same place would be useful. It won't be.

For additional ideas, also refer to the Second Life wiki page on Inventory Loss.

If you have an AMD/ATI graphics card then you may need to do these steps (ATI drivers don't seem to support OpenGL graphics very well, and SL viewers use OpenGL, as opposed to DirectX).

Furthermore, other types of graphics cards also require that the first step here be done; VBO is known to cause crashes in multiple different scenarios. So one thing to try:

• Disable VBO: Run the viewer and before logging in, press Ctrl-P to bring up the Preferences window. Then click on Graphics → Hardware Settings tab. Make sure that “Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects” is not checked.

If you are seeing everything pink, the issue is the graphics card driver. The best solution is to update the Catalyst driver (which may imply reverting to an older version than you currently have); links are provided in the section "Known Good ATI Driver", below.

If for any reason, this is not an option:

• Enable the Advanced menu with Ctrl-Alt-D, if it isn't already
• Then Advanced → Debug settings → RenderMaxTextureIndex → Set this to zero
• This should fix the pink textures but may also cause a drop in your FPS (Frames per second)

Alternately, you can go to Preferences→ Graphics -> Hardware Settings→ Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects - and disable that.

If rigged mesh goes invisible when worn the issue is, again, the graphics card driver. In this case, several Catalyst drivers are known to cause this problem. Refer to FIRE-14871 and here, where it is also evident that the same problem occurs with the official SL viewer. ¹⁾

The best thing is to uninstall the graphics card driver you have, and install 14.4, or the latest 15.x driver instead. More on this below.

If for any reason this is not an option, then a work-around is to disable Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Basic Shaders, or Hardware Skinning.

Here are some work-arounds to solve the problem:

• disable Render Glow in Preferences → Graphics -> Rendering
• disable Vig. Amount in Phototools -> Gen. (if Advanced Lighting Model is enabled in Preferences → Graphics → General)
• disable Basic Shaders in Preferences→ Graphics -> General

Windows: Updating the graphics card driver (which may imply reverting to an older version than you currently have) is likely a preferable solution; links are provided in the section "Known Good ATI Driver", below.

Mac: The issue has only been seen on Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6.8) so far. Since drivers are tied into the operating system on Macs, you would need to upgrade to Mountain Lion (OSX 10.8.3) for a permanent solution at this time. If that is not an option for you, then use the workarounds above.

This is a known issue with ATI Catalyst versions 12.2 through 12.4. If you have one of these versions, then you should update the graphics card driver; see below for more.

Temporary work-arounds:

• Disable Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Basic Shaders
• Turn off “Enable highlighting of selected prims” via Preferences→ Firestorm → Build

Ref.: FIRE-5569 - VWR-28607 - MAINT-825

This has been reported with ATI Catalyst 12.6 and 12.8: Ref. FIRE-6957 and the LL JIRA VWR-29208. The solution is update the graphics card driver as described below.

This is usually due to using outdated ATI video drivers. Refer to this SL JIRA. Disabling Aero may also help solve this. Information on how to do that is given here.

See below for how to update Catalyst, the graphics card driver.

Some have reported all manner of graphics glitches, including:

• water is totally transparent
• sky and water Windlight don't work
• the horizon is blurry
• shadows give strange effects when enabled, or a black screen; or shadows don't render at all
• inability to see glow
• no clouds
• prim faces illuminated in unexpected ways

These can often be solved by updating the ATI driver; see below.

Please refer to this page for more on that issue.

These issues have been reported with Catalyst versions 12.11 and 13.01. See if any of the following suggestions are helpful:

• Preferences → Graphics → General → Basic shaders - disable;
• Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings → AntiAliasing - disable.

Updating the driver is a preferable solution; see below.

Windows 8.1 may install its own driver for ATI/AMD graphics cards. This does not work well with Firestorm. You will need to remove the Windows driver, then install the appropriate driver from the ATI/AMD website.

This page gives guidance for Windows 7; more information is here.

Another good reference is the table on this page. However, sadly, AMD have not kept it up to date. The drivers missing are:

Catalyst 15.x drivers have been solving the “invisible rigged mesh” bugs which have been a major problem for many.

• Catalyst 15.7.1 ³⁾ appears to be working well.
• Rather than relying on the built-in Windows driver update function, visit the AMD site directly and update from there; click here to locate the drivers for your system.

If Catalyst 15.x is not available for your card, Catalyst 14.4 is believed to be a good driver version to use; it seems to fix all (or most) of the problems described on this page. This may imply rolling back your current driver to that version.

• To find Catalyst 14.4, do not use the autodetect feature; instead, on this page scroll down to “Manually Select Your Driver” and supply the required information. Then download.
• If 14.4 is a downgrade for you, please make very sure that you remove whatever driver you currently have installed before installing 14.4

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 all 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 preferable solutions than others.

• 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;
• turn on avatar impostors (this 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
• 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
• if you have a dual graphic card laptopm 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. BitDefender is apparently one that is particularly bad in this respect. Webroot is also known to cause serious problems. Whitelist the viewer and the cache folder to prevent this from happening.

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.

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 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).

Firestorm Avatar Physics lets you customise how your Avatar's breasts, belly, and butt move in response to your movements.
This feature in Firestorm is the same feature that is in Linden Lab Viewer and allows personal customisation and the ability to easily share your settings with friends by passing each other physics layers.
You can see a video of this feature in action here.
Note: This was filmed on an early development version of Viewer 2, but the effect is the same.

• Note: Make sure you have the Avatar Physics Detail option in Avatar → Preferences → Graphics
  up high enough before you begin to edit
• To add Avatar Physics to your avatar you must first make a Physics layer
• Open inventory
• Click the + button at the bottom left → New Clothes → New Physics
• Wear this New Physics layer
• Right click the Physics layer → Edit
• Now you are ready to choose your settings

• Note: If your avatar is male, you can only modify your belly and butt.
• Playing a stationary walking animation or similar is a good way to test what your settings look like as you edit.
• Choose your settings then click “Save” top left to save to the same layer you are wearing, “Save As” bottom left to save to a new layer which will automatically be worn or “Undo Changes” to roll back anything changed since the last save.
• Exit Appearance.
• You are now wearing an Avatar Physics item. As you dance or move around, your Avatar's breasts, belly, and butt will move around in the way you specified.
• You can wear, take off, edit, and create physics items just like any other clothing item.

Bounce: Shaking vertically in response to your Avatar moving vertically.

Cleavage: Shaking side to side, but to the inside rather than to the outside, in response to your avatar moving forward and backwards.

Sway: Shaking side to side, but to the outside rather than to the inside, in response to your avatar moving side to side.

Max effect: Controls the maximum range of movement. If set to 0, the feature is off.
Think of this as a general amplifier of the “bounce” effect. The higher this slider, the higher the initial bounce impulse.
Firm when it's low, saggy when it's high.

Spring: Controls the speed of vibration.
A higher number means your body part will vibrate more quickly.
Think of this as a “centre spring”, it pulls the body part in question back to its neutral position.
If this value is low, the body part “swings” around the centre more. If it's high, there's not much bounce, rather a fast vibration.

Gain: Controls the size of the effect when movement is triggered.
A higher number causes a larger effect.

Damping: Controls how long it takes for movement to stop after it's triggered.
A higher number causes the movement to stop sooner. This works directly against any bounce.
A good analogy here is High Damping: Corset, Medium Damping: Swimwear, No Damping: bare breasts.

Breast/Belly/Butt Mass: Controls the modeled mass of the body part.
A higher number makes the body part look heavier. This parameter affects all the other parameters.

Breast/Belly/Butt Gravity: Controls the strength of the pull toward the ground.
A higher number means the pull is stronger.

Breast/Belly/Butt Drag: Controls the effect of air resistance.
A higher number increases the air resistance.

• With drag turned to 100%, if you jump up, your butt will sag tremendously.
• With drag turned to 0%, if you jump up, your butt may move down slightly.

Turning drag up is sort of like pretending that you're moving through jello, so as you move forward, your body parts refuse to come along with you (i.e. they 'drag behind'). “

• If you don't want to see any Avatar Physics movement, including your own, you can disable it in your Viewer.
• You can also lower the setting so it is less taxing on your computer.
• The settings to control this are under Avatar → Preferences → Graphics.

This controls the frequency of display updates for Avatar Physics:

• To make Avatar Physics movement smooth, move the slider to a high setting.
• To make Avatar Physics less taxing for your computer, move the slider to a lower setting.
  Avatar physics movement will be less smooth, and you will not see Avatar Physics movement of avatars who are far away.
  A lower setting decreases the update frequency, so Avatar Physics movement will be jerkier.
  A higher setting makes movement smoother but may decrease performance.

• To turn off Avatar Physics completely, put the Avatar Physics Detail slider at its lowest setting.
  This only prevents your Viewer from showing you Avatar Physics movement. If you disable Avatar Physics in your Viewer but your Avatar is wearing a physics item, others can still see your Avatar Physics movement in their Viewers.

• If you don't want others to see your Avatar Physics movement:
  • Don't wear a physics item, or
  • Wear a physics item, but set the slider for every Max Effect setting to 0.

Yes we can!

You can pick up ready made Avatar Physics Layers for free from our Marketplace store

Some members of the Phoenix Team have provided their own settings for you to experiment with.

Jessica Lyon

• Avatar height: 1.87m (6'1)

• Belly Bounce: 6, 10, 9, 48
• Breast Bounce: 13, 15, 16, 49
• Breast Cleavage: 2, 10, 10, 50
• Breast sway: 8, 11, 10, 48
• Butt Bounce: 10, 13, 17, 50
• Butt Sway: 10, 11, 11, 50
• Advanced: 16, 14, 16, 15, 15, 16, 10, 11, 10

Miro Collas O-Rim™ butt bounce for guys

• Belly Bounce: 0, 0, 0, 0
• Butt Bounce: 14, 17, 19, 83
• Butt Sway: 11, 20, 15, 56
• Advanced: 0, 0, 0, 0, 45, 47

Whirly Fizzle

• Shape:
• Height: 74
• Breast Size: 69
• Breast Buoyancy: 8
• Breast Cleavage: 32
• Hip Width: 73
• Hip Length: 44
• Butt size: 50

• Belly Bounce: 5, 87, 30, 67
• Breast Bounce: 19, 33, 45, 64
• Breast Cleavage: 5, 28, 41, 53
• Breast Sway: 8, 15, 17, 36
• Butt Bounce: 7, 41, 12, 72
• Butt Sway: 8, 34, 15, 50
• Advanced: 12, 39, 9, 14, 6, 10, 10, 22, 61

Nisa Maverick

• Shape:
• Height: 6'3”
• Breasts size: 75
• Breast Buoyancy: 14
• Breast cleavage: 21

• Belly Bounce: 6, 10, 9, 48
• Breast bounce: 35, 30, 30, 67
• Breast Cleavage: 8, 25, 13, 61
• Breast Sway: 10, 15, 35, 50
• Butt Bounce: 25, 28, 25, 66
• Butt Sway: 17, 20, 19, 60
• Advanced: 13, 15, 13, 12, 8, 9, 13, 10, 11

Pudenta Magic

• Shape:
• Avatar height: 1.77m (5'9) including shoes
• Breast size: 56
• Breast Buoyancy: 31
• Breast Cleavage: 24
• Butt Size: 45

• Belly Bounce: 14, 2, 4, 70
• Breast Bounce: 8, 13, 16, 49
• Breast Cleavage: 2, 8, 10, 50
• Breast Sway: 8, 6, 10, 48
• Butt Bounce: 12, 2, 5, 50
• Butt Sway: 10, 9, 11, 50
• Advanced: 13, 15, 8, 18, 16, 10, 12, 14, 15

Mobius Ryba

• Shape:
• Height: 21/1.76m
• Breasts size: 15
• Breast Buoyancy: 35
• Breast Cleavage: 21

• Belly Bounce: 2, 8, 7, 67
• Breast Bounce: 3, 20, 16, 70
• Breast Cleavage: 3, 10, 10, 72
• Breast Sway: 3, 11, 10, 65
• Butt Bounce: 4, 13, 17, 65
• Butt Sway: 4, 11, 11, 62
• Advanced: 16, 14, 16, 14, 15, 16, 10, 11, 10

Thea Brianna

• Shape:
• Avatar Height: 1.89m (6'2“)
• Breast Size: 55
• Breast Buoyancy: 43
• Breast Cleavage: 20
• Butt Size: 30
• Hip Width: 60

• Belly Bounce: 3, 10, 27, 10
• Breast Bounce: 10, 11, 21, 45
• Breast Cleavage: 5, 8, 7, 22
• Breast Sway: 7, 6, 10, 32
• Butt Bounce: 7, 10, 12, 32
• Butt Sway: 6, 8, 9, 29
• Advanced: 10, 10, 8, 9, 8, 9, 9, 5, 10

Zi Ree

• Shape:
• Height: 1.67m
• Breasts Size: 72
• Breast Buoyancy: 45
• Breast Cleavage: 33

• Belly Bounce: 0, 10, 9, 20
• Breast Bounce: 25, 73, 23, 76
• Breast Sway: 22, 16, 31, 67
• Breast Cleavage: 17, 48, 33, 80
• Butt Bounce: 22, 100, 0, 80
• Butt Sway: 15, 27, 0, 20
• Advanced: 19, 64, 42, 0, 0, 10, 39, 27, 20

Tonya Souther

• Shape:
• Avatar height: 7'2” (2.18 meters)
• Breast Size: 85
• Buoyancy: 26
• Cleavage: 35
• Butt Size: 35

• Breasts Bounce: 33, 30, 30, 67
• Breasts Cleavage: 3, 10, 10, 57
• Breasts Sway: 10, 15, 35, 50
• Belly Bounce: 6, 9, 9, 48
• Butt Bounce: 25, 28, 25, 66
• Butt Sway: 17, 20, 19, 60
• Advanced: 18, 15, 16, 12, 8, 9, 13, 10, 11

Lette Ponnier

• Shape:
• Height: 1.96m (6'5“)
• Breast Size: 63
• Breast Buoyancy: 48
• Breast Cleavage: 33
• Hip Width: 54
• Butt Size: 44

• Belly Bounce: 6, 5, 5, 39
• Breast Bounce: 19, 13, 19, 84
• Breast Cleavage: 11, 11, 16, 79
• Breast Sway: 5, 13, 6, 50
• Butt Bounce: 6, 5, 5, 39
• Butt Sway: 12, 11, 11, 70
• Advanced: 16, 12, 16, 7, 7, 10, 10, 11, 12

• When I'm laggy, My Physics do strange things: Unfortunately this can happen but the strange effects you see are totally client side. Only you see this. You will still look correct to others. If your FPS drops low, your Physics may start to behave in an “interesting” way. Similarly, extremely high FPS (over 100) can give strange client side effects. The fact that Avatar Physics can bug out at very low or high FPS is a known issue to LL and they are working on improvements to address this. The main factor here seems to be the gain setting. If gain is high, it'll get “wiggly” when FPS drops too low. Details can be found on these LL JIRA issues: VWR-25545, VWR-25585, VWR-25584.

So you have the latest viewer and still can't see mesh - what's the deal?

Well, it isn't necessarily automatic. Depending on your specific hardware, certain settings that need to be enabled for mesh, may be set off by default.

Go to Preferences→ Graphics -> General; then enable Basic Shaders.

If this remains greyed out, then increase the level of Render Quality until Basic Shaders becomes enabled and can be checked.

Make sure you have a reasonable draw distance. If you have difficulty rendering mesh, lower it; if your draw distance is over 128, set it to 128, or less. (The optimal value for draw distance is entirely dependent on your own hardware; you will need to experiment to find what works best for you.)

In some cases, worn mesh attachments will not render properly still. Go to Preferences→ Graphics -> Rendering and disable both of the Alpha Mask Rendering options.

There are also rare instances of glitches where mesh that you are wearing appears worn by another avatar (yes, it is bizarre!). In that case, try going to Preferences → Graphics → General, and enable Hardware Skinning.

HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

If none of the above work - and make sure you try all of them first! - then in the top menu bar, open Advanced → Debug Settings, type in Mesh2MaxConcurrentRequests and gradually decrease the value. (If Advanced is not visible on the top menu bar, press Ctrl-Alt-D.) If it does not help, try increasing the value from the default. Under no circumstances should you increase this beyond 64. Please see this comment on a related JIRA ticket for an explanation of the possible drawbacks of increasing this setting. Additionally, we recommend returning it to default once the mesh you're trying to see is visible.

In most cases, this is due to the mesh item being made low LOD so as to reduce its land impact. You should never try to resolve this by increasing LOD above the maximum allowed in Preferences → Graphics → General (4), as that would result in greatly increased memory uses usually leading to a significantly increased rate of crashing. Rather, the issue is inherent in how the mesh item was made. So you either live with it, or replace the item.

If you are using a fitted mesh capable version of Firestorm (4.6.1. or later) and using ATI/AMD graphics and drivers, certain non-rigged mesh items may display as a long stretch which points to the region coordinates 0,0,0. If you observe such long spikes, then try:

• Ideally, you should update (or downgrade) to Catalyst Drivers Version 14.4 - or better yet, one of the latest 15.x drivers, if they are available for your graphics card. We've had reports these drivers fix the bug. Visit this page more on this.
• Otherwise, go to Preferences - Graphics - General subtab - disable Hardware Skinning. This may result in a loss of FPS. Turn on the Statistics Panel using Ctrl Shift 1, disable Hardware Skinning and monitor your FPS. As this bug affects some non-rigged mesh items, and not all, you may determine that disabling Hardware Skinning is not worth the loss of FPS.

If you can see most mesh fine but a specific mesh item fails to render and/or displays a pyramid, triangle, or ducky when it's first worn or rezzed, then read on. This is caused by mesh that fails to load, and in many cases is a result of having too high a draw distance in the presence of a lot of complex mesh.

• Reduce draw distance significantly, then relog. That often clears the problem.
• If that doesn't help, reboot all your network hardware and then your computer.
• (If the problem occurs only on selected regions, it could simply be a symptom of region lag–see http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/lag for information. In this case, there may be nothing you can do about it.)
• If this still doesn't help, then:

• Make sure you have hidden folders show; see here. Then browse to:

• On XP: C:\Documents and Settings[YOUR USERNAME]\Application Data\Firestorm
• On Windows Vista and 7: C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Firestorm
• On a Mac: /Users/[YOUR USERNAME]/Library/Application Support/Firestorm
• On Linux: ~/.firestorm
• In this Firestorm folder, open the folder that has the name of your affected account, e.g. whirly_fizzle
• Delete the file named texture_list_last.xml
• Login and see if the troublesome meshes then load.

• Back up your settings - see http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/backup_settings
• Wipe your settings manually, as explained in http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_clearing_settings
• Log back in and see if the mesh renders correctly. If it does…
• Restore your settings (see the backup page above), then check the mesh again.

This appears to be specific to those with ATI/AMD graphics cards. Refer to this.

This issue is also specific to those using ATI/AMD graphics cards. Please refer to this.

In Preferences → Graphics → General, make sure Basic Shaders and Hardware Skinning are enabled.

If your camera is suddenly pointing straight up - or straight down - or some impossible direction, then try these:

• Disable RLV and/or detach your collar or other RLV scripted items.

• Press Shift-Escape (Esc), once or twice, to see if that will fix it. (Available only in Firestorm 4.1.1 or later.)

• Press the Escape (Esc) key a few times. Pressing Escape will clear focus from any windows that have focus, and finally, will reset camera position to your current settings. Also try Shift-Escape to reset camera angle to Firestorm default settings. If Shift-Esc will not work, then go to the top menu, Advanced (ctrl-alt-d, if not enabled) → Shortcuts → Reset Camera Angles.

• Press Ctrl-9 - a few times even.

• Go to the top menu, World → Photo & Video → Camera Tools. Click all the buttons with the label 'D', on all tabs.

• Go to Advanced (Ctrl-Alt-D if the Advanced menu is not visible) → Show Debug Settings and enter “FocusOffsetRearView” ¹⁾ in the input field. Click “Reset to default” at the bottom.

• If that doesn't work, hold down Shift or Control, then use the mouse wheel to change the camera angle.

• Detach all worn HUDs and prim attachments. Sometimes worn items can control your camera perspective. If this fixes the problem, then re-add your items back on one at a time until you find the one causing the problem.

• If all of these fail to work, then the only remaining solution is to reset all your settings to defaults.

This can happen when you have a non default value set for Font DPI within Windows operating system settings.

• Windows 10: Right click your desktop → Display settings → Display → Change the size of text, apps, and other items → Make sure this is set to 100%.
• Windows 8: Right click your desktop → Personalise → Display → Adjust font size (DPI) → Make sure this is set to the default value of 96.

If prompted, reboot or sign out and back in.

Many thanks to Crypticzynergy for much of this information.

• Windows 10:
  • Right click your desktop → Display settings → Display → Change the size of text, apps, and other items → Set this to the scaling you prefer (default is 125%).
  • Click Apply, then click Sign Out Now
• Windows 8:
  • Right-click on desktop and select “Personalize → Display → Adjust Font Size (DPI)”. Click “Continue” to verify making changes to the settings.
  • Click on the “Custom DPI…” button. (Win8: This will be in a “DPI Scaling” window that pops up,)
  • A “Custom DPI Setting” window is displayed. Set your DPI as you would like it and ensure that the “Use Windows XP Style DPI scaling” is CHECKED.
  • Click on the “OK” button to close the “Custom DPI Setting” window.
  • OK the request to Restart computer.

• Right-click on the viewer's shortcut/icon/executable on your desktop (or in Windows Explorer) and select “Properties.”

• Go to the “Compatibility” tab. Place a check in the box that says, “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.”

• Click “OK” to save the changes and close the popup window.

• Log into SL and verify that Mouselook View now works as intended. You're done!

“Windows XP style DPI scaling” does not actually scale a program's GUI; it only scales/enlarges the system fonts and other system UI elements at higher DPI settings. Basically any text drawn using system fonts is suddenly bigger.

Windows Vista's method is ambiguously called “display scaling”, or better known as “DPI virtualization”. Windows still performs “XP style scaling” when this option is enabled, but programs/software that can handle high DPI settings are now expected to tell Windows they can handle it by setting a “DPI-aware” flag. If that flag is missing, Windows first renders the entire program window to an internal bitmap using 96 DPI (the default setting), and then scales up that bitmap to the current DPI setting before finally displaying it on your screen.

Apparently, having the checkbox marked ENSURES the EXCLUSIVE use of the legacy “Windows XP style DPI scaling” method and DISABLES the additional use of “DPI Virtualization” for programs that lack the DPI-aware flag. Microsoft/Windows dislikes non-conformity by 3rd party programs to the point where it won't play nice with said software/programs, like SL! This is where the tantrum comes – in the form of Mouselook view issues. (Basically when the checkbox is unchecked, you're actually enabling the newer method – DPI virtualization.)