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 sound is going to the correct device (i.e., speakers or headset), and so on (this may require you to adjust settings in your sound mixer or other similar software);
  • 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.

• If you have plugged in a USB sound device, you may need to relog so that the viewer can use it.
• 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.

• 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). Do this check also for llceflib_host.
• Relog and attempt video playback again
• If it works, you will need to stop your firewall/virus protection from blocking the slplugin and/or llceflib_host files by granting 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 and llceflib_host 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.

• 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”
• In Preferences → Network & Files -> Connection, make sure the Maximum Number of Web Browser Windows dropdown is set to Five, Ten or Unlimited
• 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 the external media plugin can not be executed, and you may see a message saying: Adobe Flash Player or an HTML5 supported browser is required for video playback.

• 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.

• All users: Test your Flash
  • To make sure you have successfully installed the correct version of Flash and that it is working, use the in-world Flash game to test it.
    • Open the Developer menu: CTRL-Alt-Q. (Close this after testing; it's best not to leave this menu open.)
    • Then type CTRL-SHIFT-Z to open the internal browser.
    • Once the browser loads, click the Home icon in the upper left of the browser window.
    • Click “Flash game” (3rd column, 4th row).
    • A bubble-shooter game should load.

• 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 no longer needed for Windows users (and never was for linux users). Mac users, however, still need to have it.

• 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.

If the music volume fades as you cam around or edit objects, check the sound equalization settings in your operating system. For example, this may be caused by “Loudness equalization” being enabled in your speaker properties on Windows 7. (Refer to http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-19885.)

This error is due to Flash not being installed, or not installed correctly. See above.

If using a VEA4 TV, you get a “File could not be found” error, disable the IPv6 protocol in the Windows network adapter. Note that this is not recommended, but apparently is the only way to get this brand of TV to work.

If sound eventually cuts out on your computer while using Firestorm and the only way to get it back is to log off Firestorm, disable Audio Enhancement via the steps shown here. Another possibility is Loudness equalization; reference this JIRA.

Refer to this page for all Win10 issues.

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.

For users on Sierra, there are reports of media features (such as MOAP, TVs, web search, and web profiles) working more slowly. Ref. BUG-40552.

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.

• Preset in use: Shows the name of the graphics preset in use.

• Quality and speed: Allows you to adjust the graphics quality (lower is faster). Many options are changed based on this setting.
  • Reload Defaults: The circular arrow to the right of the Quality and speed slider (above) will revert all graphics settings to default values. Use this if you have made changes that have a negative impact on the veiwer and cannot remember what you changed.
• Fullscreen Mode (requires restart): Enable this if you want to run Firestorm in full screen mode, as opposed to windowed.
• Shaders:
  • Transparent water: Allows water to look transparent instead of opaque. Enable this (if it isn't already) if you exeprience glowing water while wearing rigged mesh.
  • Bump mapping and shiny: Enables the rendering of shiny and bump mapped surfaces.
  • Local Lights: Globally enables/disables local lights.
  • Basic shaders: Allows rendering of high-quality water, basic lighting, and other graphical effects.
  • Atmospheric shaders: Enables advanced atmospheric and lighting.
  • Advanced Lighting Model: Check this to allow shadows and other features to be enabled. Note that enabling this can cause instability and performance issues; click here for known specifics. For more how shadows behave, see this SL wiki page.
  • Ambient occlusion: Checking this enables more realistic shadows; the stability and performance note above also applies here.
• Shadows: Lets you choose what light sources cause shadows; this is available only if the Advanced Lighting Model option above is enabled).
  • none
  • sun/moon
  • sun/moon and projectors
• Avatar Shadows: controls whether and how avatars cast shadows. The higher the setting, the more client lag it will cause.
  • None
  • Simplified
  • Optimized
  • Complex
• Water Reflections: Allows water to reflect terrain, objects, and avatars.
• Point Lighting: Affects the number of rendered light sources when Advanced Lighting Model (above) is disabled. A viewer restart is needed if this setting is changed.

• Draw distance: Affects how far out from your viewpoint objects will be rendered in the scene.
• Max particle count: Sets the maximum number of particles you are able to see on your screen at once.
• Maximum complexity: Controls at what point a visually complex avatar is shown as a jellydoll. ¹⁾ Current defaults are:
  • Low: 35,000
  • Low-Mid: 100,000
  • Mid: 200,000
  • Mid-High: 250,000
  • High: 300,000
  • High-Ultra: 350,000
  • Ultra: 350,000
• Max # of non-imposter avatars: Sets the number of avatars that will be fully rendered. See Avatar impostors below.
• Post process quality: Determines the resolution with which glow is rendered. A lower setting will cause glow to look slightly pixelated.
• Avatar Physics: Affects the detail of avatar physics. Set to 0 to disable avatar physics entirely.
• Level of Detail (LOD) Distance Factors:
  • Objects & Sculpts LOD: Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering object shapes; a lower setting causes objects to appear more angular and polygonal.
    Setting this higher than 4 via Debug Settings is not recommended.
  • Flexiprims: Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering flexible object shapes.
  • Trees: Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering (Linden) tree shapes.
  • Avatars: Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering avatar shapes.
  • Terrain: Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering terrain.
  • Sky: Controls the detail with which windlight skies are rendered. Higher values mean better quality but lower performance.
• Avatar Rendering:
  • Avatar imposters: Allows far-away avatars to be subtly rendered as two-dimensional images in order to improve your frame rate in crowded areas.
  • Hardware skinning: This allows some aspects of avatar rendering to be handled by your graphics card to improve performance.
  • Avatar cloth: Allows the rendering of flexible cloth on avatar clothing, such as shirts and flared pants.
• Terrain Detail: Choose the amount of terrain detail you would like to see. Setting this option to Low replaces the ground texture with a low-resolution ground texture.
  This option is not available (ie, it is greyed out) if Basic Shaders is enabled, in which case it is always set to High.

• Presets: Three buttons which allow you to save, load or delete graphics settings presets.
  • To create a preset, set your graphics settings as you like. Click “Save” and give the preset a name.
  • To load a preset that you have created, click “Load” and choose the preset to load.
  • To delete one, click “Delete” and choose the preset to delete.
  • The presets can be accessed either from Preferences → Graphics → General or from the presets button in the upper right of the viewer, near the media and sound controls.

• Anisotropic Filtering: Enables anisotropic filtering to improve texture quality. This setting may reduce your viewer's performance. For more information see this wikipedia page.
• Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects: VBO on modern hardware gives a performance gain. However, older hardware often has poor implementation of VBOs and the viewer may become unstable when this is enabled. VBO is explained in depth here.
• Enable Streamed VBOs: Allows the use of streamed VBO as well as static; only works if you have VBO enabled.
• Enable Lossy Texture Compression: If this is enabled, texture compression will be enabled for rendering. This gives improved performance, and a smaller grapics memory footprint, at the cost of lower quality rendered textures. Textures are compressed by the video card before being stored into video memory. Given that compressed textures can often end up pixellated, it is not recommended that this be enabled unless you have little video memory. Ref: SL JIRA MAINT-708.

• Antialiasing: Smoothes jagged edges. Renders a scene the number of multiple times that is actually shown and scales it down. Choose the level of antialiasing the viewer will use (requires restart).
• Gamma: Use the Windlight Sky Editor's Scene Gamma control on the Atmosphere/Sun tab instead of this; currently functional only if Atmospheric Shaders are disabled.
• Viewer Texture Memory Buffer (MB): This is the amount of graphics memory the viewer will use. By default, it is set to the size of your graphics card's memory, to a maximum of 768 for 32-bit Firestorm, 1024 for 64-bit Firestorm. Lowering this value may resolve certain texture corruption and performance issues, but under normal circumstances you should not need to alter this setting.
• Fog Distance Ratio: Determines how far away Second Life's fog effect begins. Lower values = closer fog. Only used when you have Atmospheric Shaders disabled. If Atmospheric Shaders are enabled, this effect is handled by the Distance Multiplier control in the Advanced Sky Editor.

• Freeze updates to World (pause everything): This suspends rendering. Useful for picture taking, if you wish to capture a specific scene that might otherwise change while you are preparing.

• Use HTTP Textures: Uses the HTTP protocol to fetch textures as opposed to the older UDP. Always on, as it is required for SL.
• Max Texture Quality Level: If you have a poor connection, you may wish to reduce the level of texture detail. This can be set to Normal, Minimal or None.
  Naturally, setting this to anything other than Normal will result in textures displaying poorly, or not at all. Do not change unless absolutely necessary - for example, if you have a very poor connection but need to be online, and don't care if you can see textures or not.

These options control when alpha masking should be used in an attempt to mitigate the well known alpha sorting issue, in which prims behind other prims may appear to flicker in front. The two options are:

• Render alpha masks when “Advanced Lighting Model” is not enabled
• Render alpha masks when “Advanced Lighting Model” is enabled

• Render Glow: If enabled, shows the glow effect on any prims that have it.
  • Strength: Controls the intensity of the glow effect. The default is 2.
• Show avatars that haven't finished loading: Equivalent to the debug setting RenderUnloadedAvatar.
  Note that this is not a solution to a bake fail, as it doesn't actually fix anything; it merely forces the viewer to display whatever it happens to have managed to load. It is recommended that this be always left disabled.
• Limit Framerate: Yield some time to the local host if a threshold framerate is reached. The framerate limit is set with the slider to the right.
• Show the Scene as Wireframe: Enables wireframe display of everything. Note that this setting does not persist after a relog.
• Enable Attached Lights (Face Lights): Enable this if you wish to see the affects of lights worn by avatars.
• Render Attached Particles: Enable to see particles generated by worn attachments.

• Time to delay while pre-caching before showing world: Allows the world to start caching before it is shown, at login.
• Quality of the shadows: Adjusts the quality of shadows. Note that increasing this will significantly impact rendering speed (FPS).
• Scale of Terrain Texture Rendering (requires restart): Indicates the scale of terrain textures, with lower values being more compressed textures.

Depth of field simulates real life blurring that occurs when things are not in focus. For example, if you are taking a photo of a person, then typically, things in the background will be blurred; the futher away, the more blurred. If you shift your focus to a tree behind the person, then the person will, in turn, become blurred.

For more information, refer here.

You can adjust the following settings to mimic RL camera effects.

• Depth of Field: Enabling this causes out-of-focus objects to be blurred, depending on distance.
  • Enable while in edit mode: Normally, DoF disables when you edit something; if you enable this, DoF will remain active.
• Camera F Number: Controls maximum screen radius from which to sample from, to avoid graphics card In real world terms this is the aperture setting for the lens and the lower the value the shorter the depth of field will be. The same applies to SL.
  The default value is 9.00
• Camera Focal Length mm: This tells the viewer what Focal Length/Lens Length to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher numbers produce a narrower depth of field.
  The default is 50.0
• Camera FOV degs.: This tells the viewer what FOV you would like to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher values will produce a more narrow depth of field.
  The default is 60.00
• Camera Aspect ratio: This is supposed to be aspect ratio of the camera you're modelling. For example, a 35mm camera has an aspect ratio of 3:2 (1.5). Second Life will use this as a frame of reference for how field of view and focal length must be adjusted depending on window size.
  Apparently, this currently has no effect.
  The default is 1.50
• DOF Focus Transition Time: This sets the time in seconds it take to the viewer to change focus from one object.
  The default is 0.50
• DOF Rendering Quality: This determines the quality of the DOF Effect. For non-photography uses '.25' is good. For setting up shots '.50' or '.70' is very nice. For shooting quality images '1.00' is best. Note that High values will slow down your FPS.
  The default is 0.70

• Windows
• Mac OSX
• 64-bit Debian 9.x (stretch) (under construction)
• 32-bit Ubuntu 14.04
• 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04
• 32-bit Ubuntu 16.04
• 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04
• Gentoo (under construction)

This procedure is used for building a 64-bit viewer on 64-bit Debian systems and was tested and verified on Debian 9.3. This procedure assumes that your system has been properly updated.

This procedure may not work on older versions of Debian, nor has it been tested on any other version of Debian or any other distribution/variant/derivative.

This is needed for compiling any viewer based on the LL open source code and only needs to be done once.

Firestorm requires version 4.9 or 4.8 of the gcc/g++ compiler. This is not available in Debian 9's default repositories, so we need to add a Jessie repo.

sudo echo "deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update

The required tools, some of which may already be installed, are:

sudo apt-get upgrade # to make sure all installed packages are current
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends moreutils bison bzip2 cmake curl doxygen flex g++-4.9 gdb m4 mercurial python python-pip

(the –install-recommends flag tells apt-get to install all packages recommended by each named package.)

The build environment need to know to use gcc 4.9:

sudo update-alternatives --remove-all gcc
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.9 49 \
--slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-4.9 \
--slave /usr/bin/gcov gcov /usr/bin/gcov-4.9
sudo update-alternatives --config gcc

Note that this will “hide” the current gcc from the build environment, so you will want to add it as an alternative, then use the “update-alternatives –config gcc” command to switch versions as needed.

These libraries may be included with your distribution, and some may already be installed:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libstdc++6 libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxml2-dev libxrender-dev

Autobuild is a Linden Lab resource that does all the hard work. The 64-bit version requires a modified autobuild package, which our Nicky Djasmin has provided.

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install llbase
pip install hg+https://bitbucket.org/NickyD/autobuild-1.0#egg=autobuild

This will install autobuild and add a link in the exec path

Plan your directory structure ahead of time. If you are going to be producing changes or patches you will be cloning a copy of an unaltered source code tree for every change or patch you make, so you might want to have all this work stored in its own directory. If you are a casual compiler and won't be producing any changes, you can use one directory. For this document, I will assume ~/src.

cd ~/src

There are several repositories but the one wea re after is the development repository. You can grab all the sources if you wish, but but keep in mind that each FS source requires around 110MB initially and around 4.3GB after the binaries have been built, plus possible compiling overhead.

hg clone http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl

It will create a folder called phoenix-firestorm-lgpl. You can optionally add a folder name to the end of the hg clone command and it will use that as the destination directory name:

hg clone http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl firestorm-source

The rest of this document will assume the default directory, phoenix-firestorm-lgpl

This can take a bit, it's a rather large download. On a slow network, it may fail, and this script can help mitigate the issue:

pull_in_chunks.sh

#!/bin/bash
 
cd ~/src
hg clone -r 10000 http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl
cd phoenix-firestorm-lgpl
for i in {15000..40000..5000}
do
	echo "Grabbing to change $i"
	hg pull -u -r $i
done
echo "Grabbing to tip"
hg pull -u
cd ~/src

cd ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl
autobuild -m64 configure -c ReleaseFS_open

This will set up to compile with all defaults and without non-default libraries. It will fetch any additional necessary libraries.

There are a number of switches you can use to modify the configuration process. The name of each switch is followed by its type and then by the value you want to set.

• LL_TESTS (bool) controls if the tests are compiled and run. There are quite a lot of them so excluding them is recommended unless you have some reason to need one or
  more of them.
• clean will cause autobuild to remove any previously compiled objects and fetched packages. It can be useful if you need to force a reload of all packages
• package will result in a bzip2 archive of the completed viewer. Enabled by default, you would have to use -DPACKAGE:BOOL=Off to disable it

TIP: OFF and NO are the same as FALSE; anything else is considered to be TRUE

Examples:

autobuild -m64 configure -c ReleaseFS_open -- --clean -DLL_TESTS:BOOL=FALSE
autobuild -m64 configure -c ReleaseFS_open -- --clean

The first time you configure, several additional files will be downloaded from Firestorm and Second Life sources. These are mostly binary packages maintained outisde the viewer development itself. And if you use the –clean switch, you will re-download them all.

autobuild -m64 build -c ReleaseFS_open

Now, sit back, read War and Peace, calculate PI to 50 places, tour the country, whatever you desire. Compiling can take quite a bit of time depending on your computer's processing power.

NOTE: It is possible to use autobuild to do both the configure step (only needed once) and the build step with one command (autobuild -m64 build -c ReleaseFS_open [– switches] . For clarity, they are mentioned separately.</WRAP>

Create the desktop launcher

cd ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-x86_64/newview/packaged/etc
./refresh_desktop_app_entry.sh

Then open your applications menu and look in the Internet or Network branch for the Firestorm launcher.

cd ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-x86_64/newview/packaged
./firestorm

You can copy or move the contents of ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-i686/newview/packaged to another location if you choose, and then launch firestorm from there. Example:

mkdir ~/Firestorm
cp -a ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-x86_64/newview/packaged/* ~/Firestorm
cd ~/Firestorm
./firestorm # or etc/refresh_desktop_app_entry.sh to create a desktop launcher

If you encounter errors or run into problems, please first double check that you followed the steps correctly. One typo can break it. Then, check whether someone else already had the same issue. A solution might be known already.

• IRC: The #phoenixviewer-dev channel is the best place to look for solutions.
  A lot of self-compilers and project developers hang out there and are ready to help you.

• Jira:JIRA may contain resolved tickets.
  Search using the error you encountered.

• Included documentation: In the Firestorm root folder are several “README” documents. You should make yourself familiar with their content, even if they appear to be out of date.

If you found a procedural error in this document, please let us know in as much detail as you can, either contact the author (preferred) or discuss on IRC.

• Missing libraries/applications/packages This may occur if you did not or could not install the listed packages. The packages do exist in the default Ubuntu repositories, so make sure you did not disable those. If you find that a library or application is in a different package for your system, contact the author with the name of the library or application, the name of its package and your Linux OS so that information can be checked and added here.

• Delayed sounds Some users have noted that OpenAL plays sounds from the viewer up to 20 seconds after they are triggered. There is no solution to this via the viewer, but there may be some solutions on the Internet

• No Sounds The viewer will try to use whatever sound service you have running, but might need a little coaxing. Read through the firestorm script inside the program folder, you will find various commended options. Uncommenting one or more may help restore sound.

• Voice Won't Connect It was observed in testing that voice would not connect unless “No Device” was chosen for the Input device (Preferences ⇒ Sound & Media ⇒ Voice ⇒ Audio Device Settings). This was resolved by replacing Firestorm/lib/libvivoxal.so.1 with a copy from release.

This procedure is used for building a non-standalone viewer on 64-bit Ubuntu 16.04 LTS systems and was tested on a fresh installation within a virtual guest. This procedure assumes that your Ubuntu system has been properly updated, and also assumes any derivative system (eg.: Mint) includes all the standard Ubuntu libraries.

The build process requires at least 4GB RAM with swap, a modern dual-core CPU and 32GB available HDD space. Recommded 8GB or more RAM, quad-core CPU and 32GB available HDD space.

This is needed for compiling any viewer based on the LL open source code and only needs to be done once.

The required tools are:

sudo apt-get update # to make sure the repository list is current
sudo apt-get upgrade # to make sure all installed packages are current
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends bison bzip2 cmake curl flex g++-4.7 m4 mercurial python python-dev python-pip
sudo pip install --upgrade pip # The version in the repository is not the latest version
sudo pip install llbase

(the –install-recommends flag tells apt-get to install all packages recommended by each named package.)

In case you have multiple versions of g++ installed, which is possible, we need to identify 4.7.x as the default version.

update-alternatives --remove-all gcc 
update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.7 47 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-4.7 --slave /usr/bin/gcov gcov /usr/bin/gcov-4.7
update-alternatives --config gcc

It doesn't hurt to run those commands if you only have one g++ version installed.

These libraries may be included with your distribution, and some may be automatically installed as dependencies for the tools you just installed:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends libc6-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libstdc++6 \
  libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxml2-dev libxrender-dev 

You can optionally install doxygen to eliminate related errors, but it is not needed to build Firestorm

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends doxygen

Autobuild is a Linden Lab resource that does all the hard work. For Firestorm, you will need a modified version of autobuild from one of our Developers.

sudo hg clone https://bitbucket.org/NickyD/autobuild-1.0 /opt/autobuild
sudo ln -s /opt/autobuild/bin/autobuild /usr/bin/autobuild 

Plan your directory structure ahead of time. If you are going to be producing changes or patches you will be cloning a copy of an unaltered source code tree for every change or patch you make, so you might want to have all this work stored in its own directory. If you are a casual compiler and won't be producing any changes, you can use one directory. This document will refer to src in your home directory, ~/src.

cd ~/src

There are several repositories but the one we are after is the development repository. You can grab all the sources if you wish, but but keep in mind that each FS source requires around 110MB initially and around 4.3GB after the binaries have been built, plus possible compiling overhead.

hg clone http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl

It will create a folder called phoenix-firestorm-lgpl. You can choose a different destination folder by adding that folder's name to the end of the command, such as:

hg clone http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl firestorm-source

The rest of this document will assume the default directory, phoenix-firestorm-lgpl

Cloning the Firestorm repository can take a bit, it's a rather large download. On a slow network, it may fail, and this script can help:

pull_in_chunks.sh

#!/bin/bash
 
cd ~/src
hg clone -r 10000 http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl
cd phoenix-firestorm-lgpl
for i in {15000..40000..5000}
do
	echo "Grabbing to change $i"
	hg pull -u -r $i
done
echo "Grabbing to tip"
hg pull -u
cd ~/src

cd ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl
autobuild configure -c ReleaseFS_open

This will set up to compile with all defaults and without third party libraries. It will fetch any additional necessary libraries.

There are a number of switches you can use to modify the configuration process. The name of each switch is followed by its type and then by the value you want to set.

• LL_TESTS (bool) controls if the tests are compiled and run. There are quite a lot of them so excluding them is recommended unless you have some reason to need one or
  more of them.
• clean will cause autobuild to remove any previously compiled objects and fetched packages. It can be useful if you need to force a reload of all packages
• package will result in a bzip2 archive of the completed viewer. Enabled by default, you would have to use -DPACKAGE:BOOL=Off to disable it

TIP: OFF and NO are the same as FALSE; anything else is considered to be TRUE

Examples:

autobuild -m64 configure -c ReleaseFS_open -- --clean -DLL_TESTS:BOOL=FALSE
autobuild -m64 configure -c ReleaseFS_open -- --clean

The first time you configure, several additional files will be downloaded from Firestorm and Second Life sources. These are mostly binary packages maintained outside the viewer development itself. And if you use the –clean switch, you will re-download them all.

autobuild -m64 build -c ReleaseFS_open

Now, sit back, read War and Peace, calculate PI to 50 places, tour the country, whatever you desire. Compiling can take quite a bit of time depending on your computer's processing power.

NOTE: It is possible to use autobuild to do both the configure step (only needed once) and the build step with one command (autobuild -m64 build -c ReleaseFS_open [– switches] . For clarity, they are mentioned separately.</WRAP>

Create the desktop launcher

cd ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-x86_64/newview/packaged/etc
./refresh_desktop_app_entry.sh

Then open your applications menu and look in the Internet or Network branch for the Firestorm launcher.

cd ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-i686/newview/packaged
./firestorm

You can copy or move the contents of ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-x86_64/newview/packaged to another location if you choose, and then launch firestorm from there. Example:

mkdir ~/Firestorm64
cp -a ~/src/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/build-linux-x86_64/newview/packaged/* ~/Firestorm64
cd ~/Firestorm64
./firestorm # or etc/refresh_desktop_app_entry.sh to create a desktop launcher

If you encounter errors or run into problems, please first double check that you followed the steps correctly. One typo can break it. Then, check whether someone else already had the same issue. A solution might be known already.

• IRC:The #phoenixviewer-dev channel is the best place to look for solutions.
  A lot of self-compilers and project developers hang out there and are ready to help you.

• Jira:JIRA may contain resolved tickets.
  Search using the error you encountered.

• Included documentation: In the Firestorm root folder are several “README” documents. You should make yourself familiar with their content, even if they appear to be out of date.

If you found a procedural error in this document, please let us know in as much detail as you can, either contact the author (preferred) or discuss on IRC.

• Missing libraries/applications/packages This may occur if you did not or could not install the listed packages. The packages do exist in the default Ubuntu repositories, so make sure you did not disable those. If you find that a library or application is in a different package for your system, contact the author with the name of the library or application, the name of its package and your Linux OS so that information can be checked and added here.

• Delayed sounds Some users have noted that OpenAL plays sounds from the viewer up to 20 seconds after they are triggered. There is no solution to this via the viewer, but there may be some solutions on the Internet

• Voice Won't Connect It was observed in testing that voice would not connect and no devices could be selected in Preferences ⇒ Sound & Media ⇒ Voice ⇒ Audio Device Settings. This was resolved by replacing Firestorm/lib/libvivoxal.so.1 with a copy from release.

Why? Because here be dragons. And sometimes clearing your settings may be the best way to fix a weird problem. Keep in mind that settings are not cleared by uninstalling or installing new viewers.

If clearing settings solves your problem, then you might want to create a backup of your settings once you have restored them as you like them - and assuming that everything works. Click here for instructions.

• Go to Preferences–> Network & Files -> Directories
• Click the 'Open Settings Folder' button
• A window will popup. Keep this window open.
• Log off of the viewer.
• Delete everything you see inside the folder.
• Navigate up one level to the folder above.
• Now locate the folders which have the names of your avatar(s)
• In each of these folders, locate the file settings_per_account.xml and delete it

Assuming you are unable to log into the viewer, follow these steps.

• Navigate to the folder that stores the application data for the viewer - if you do not see this folder, you may need to show hidden folders.

• Find the folder named “user_settings” and navigate inside it
• Delete everything
• Now locate the folders which have the names of your avatar(s)
• In each of these folders, locate the file settings_per_account.xml and delete it

This is a powerful set of tools for SL photographers and machinima makers. It combines a large number of settings from many places, into a single, multi-tabbed window.

This is accessed via a button on the button bar. If you do not have the button visible, right click any button on the button bar, and select Toolbar Buttons; the Toolbar Buttons window opens. Locate the Phototools button there, and drag it onto any of the button bars (bottom, left or right). Alternately, you can access via top menu, World → Photo and Video → Phototools.

This tab controls many windlight features.

• Basic Shaders: This should always be left on, unless you have a very low end computer or specifically need it disabled for some other reason.
• Enable Atmospheric Shaders: Enables full Windlight features. This needs to be on to take full advantage of the settings on this tab.
  If this is greyed out, make sure you have Basic Shaders enabled (bottom of the tab).
• Use Region Windlight: Force the use of the region's windlight settings.
  Same as top menu, World→ Environment Editor → Environment Settings → Use region settings.

• WL Sky: A drop down menu from which you can select a different Windlight sky preset. Much like the one available in the QuickPrefs window.
• WL Water: You can select a different preset to apply to water.
• Day Cycle: Here you can select from one of several different day cycles. These use winlight settings that are different from the default.

Below these is a time of day slider. However, this slider will revert to Windlight Sky to Default. Currently, to change the time of day for a specific sky preset, you need to edit the preset.

• Quick Windlights: An easy way to select default time of day. Same as going to the top menu -> World→ Sun Position.

• Windlight Presets: Quick access to creating or editing sky presets, or water presets.

• Type: This drop down allows you to select what water will reflect. Note that the more you enable, the lower the viewer performance (ie, the higher the client lag).
  This setting can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General.

• Resolution: Select the quality of water reflections. Note that anything above “Good” requires that Lighting and Shadows be enabled in the Light tab. If you change setting here, then toggle the Basic Shaders setting off, then back on, for the change to take effect.
  As above, increasing quality results in lower performance.

• Transparent Water: If disabled, water will always be opaque.

• Enable Lighting and Shadows: This allows a variety of additional features, beyond shadows, to be enabled and used, such as Depth of Field.
  This can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Lighting and Shadows.
• Enable All Local Lights: Enables light sources other than sun/moon.
  This can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Local Lights.
  • Enable attached Lights (Face Lights): With this on, you will also see local lights which are attached to avatars.
    Normally, this option would be accessed via the top menu -> Develop→ Rendering → Render Attached Lights.

• Shadow Types: Select what types of shadows you want to be cast. Point light (lights that do not have the projection feature enabled) will always create a sense of shadows, yet they will not cast them upon any surface. It is important to note that regardless of the setting you choose here, textures projected from projection lights will still be enabled.

• Shd. Res (Shadow Resolution): This determines the quality of the shadows. It also is very demanding of computer resources. It is a good idea to leave this setting as LOW as possible when you are not shooting. When you are shooting, set it to 1.0 while preparing your shot. When you are ready to take your shot, slowly raise the slider bar to the right. You need to be careful of your framerate while you raise this setting. It is helpful to turn on the Statistics Bar (under Aids) when you do this for the first few times so you can be familiar with the level of shadows that works best with your system.
  NOTE: Setting this too high or moving it too fast will cause viewer crashes.
• Shd Clarity: This is a VERY important setting. It essentially determines how clear the Sun/Moon shadows are drawn overall. This setting should be set first before adjusting the setting below. With the value of 'Shd. Res' above set to 1.0, slide the value for 'Shd. Clarity' until the sharpest possible result is achieved.
  Please note, the clarity of shadows is directly related to the position of the camera and Sun/Moon. Every time you move either the camera or the Sun/Moon, it is best to adjust this value again. In addition, in order to make adjusting this value easier, it is helpful to set 'Shd. Blur' to 0.0 first.
• Shd. Blur (Shadow Blur): The higher the number, the softer the shadow edges. Set to '0' for the sharpest shadows possible. This setting is directly related to the one below it as well. It allows you to set the overall possible amount of shadow blur. If set to 4.00, you can use Shadows Soften to adjust the shadow blur independent of the ambient occlusion. PLEASE NOTE: Ambient Occlusion must be enabled for this setting to work.
• Shd. Soften: Controls the softening effect of Sun/Moon shadows. One simple way to set this value for your specific needs is to first set the 'Shd. Blur' value above to around 3.0. Then the slider here to soften the AO to your liking. Please note, a value of 0.0 will effectively turn off all Sun/Moon shadows. In addition, this has no effect of shadows the caused by projector lights.
• Blur. Dist. (Blur Distance): This will determine the point at which the shadows will begin to blur relative to the camera. The lower the value the closer the point of shadow blur will begin.
  PLEASE NOTE: Ambient Oclussion must be enabled for this setting to work.
• FOV Cutoff: This determines the Field Of View cutoff at which the viewer will switch between ortho instead of perspective projection. If you are getting shadows that are 'jaggedy' try adjusting this setting for improvement. Also, adjusting the XYZ values for the debug setting RenderShadowSplitExponent can be very helpful.

• Show Bounding Boxes for All Lights in Scene: Will show wireframe boxes for all lights within a scene.
• Show Light Radius for Selection: Shows the circular light casting of any selected light(s).

• Enable Ambient Occlusion: Ambient Occlusion adds shading to all objects. It is most effective when the Effect and AO Soften settings below are used. It can add a high level of realism to the image. This is especially true when images are made at resolutions of 2048 pixels or above. For further details, see here.
  This can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Ambient Occlusion.

• Scale: Controls the sampling region; larger regions are more accurate. It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Max Scale: Controls the maximum screen radius from which to sample from, to avoid graphics card cache misses and associated large performance penalty. It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Factor: Scaling factor for the effect (larger is darker). It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Effect: Controls the overall darkening effect of Ambient Occlusion. The default value of 0.8 produces an almost imperceptible effect. Values of 0.0 and below provide a more realistic result. Please note that the Ambient Occlusion produces a noise like effect and this can be softened using the 'AO Soften' controls below. In addition, the standard mesh avatar can look less than appealing with high Effect values due to the low quality geometry of the avatar. Please Note: The lowest value you can set in the slider is 0, while in the spinner you can enter negative values of up to -10000.
• AO Soften: Controls the softening of the Ambient Occlusion effect. One simple way to set this value for your specific needs is to first set the 'Shd. Blur' value above to around 4.0. Then the slider here to soften the AO to your liking. Please note, a value of 0.0 will effectively turn off Ambient Occlusion rendering.

Depth of field simulates real life blurring that occurs when things are not in focus. For example, if you are taking a photo of a person, then typically, things in the background will be blurred; the futher away, the more blurred. If you shift your focus to a tree behind the person, then the person will, in turn, become blurred.

For more information, refer here.

Many of the settings below are also found in Preferences→ Graphics -> Depth of Field.

• Enable Depth of Field (DOF): Turns on the DoF feature. This function requires that Shadows and Local lights both be enabled in the Light tab.
• Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen: This will show you the vertical field of view for the camera. In SL is possible to change the lens length just like in RL. The smaller the FOV the longer the camera lens. A 50mm lens has a FOV of 27.0 degrees. To adjust the FOV use the zoom slider bar below.
  Please see here for a table showing the relationship between FOV and Lens Focal Length (mm).
  Rember to disable this before taking pictures, or it will show in them.

• View angle: In real world terms this is a Zoom feature. This will change the field of view in you viewer window. It is the same as hitting Ctrl + 0 or Ctrl+8.
  NOTE: This will not function if you have flycam enabled (3D SpaceNavigator).
• FOV (Field of View): This tells the viewer what FOV you would like to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher values will produce a more narrow depth of field.
• f-number: Controls maximum screen radius from which to sample from. In real world terms this is the aperture setting for the lens and the lower the value the shorter the depth of field will be. The same applies to SL.
• Foc Length (Focal Length mm): This tells the viewer what Focal Length/Lens Length to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher numbers produce a narrower depth of field.
• Foc Time (Focus Time): This sets the time in seconds it take to the viewer to change focus from one object.
• CoC (Circle of Confusion): This is an important setting. It determines the strength of the blur itself. It does not change the depth of field, it adjusts how much those objects outside of it will be blurry. (This number can be negative, for some “odd” effects.)
• Resolution: This determines the quality of the DOF Effect. For non-photography uses '.25' is good. For setting up shots '.50' or '.70' is very nice. For shooting quality images '1.00' is best. Note that High values will slow down your FPS.
• Aspect Ratio: This is supposed to be aspect ratio of the camera you're modelling. For example, a 35mm camera has an aspect ratio of 3:2 (1.5). Second Life will use this as a frame of reference for how field of view and focal length must be adjusted depending on window size.
  Apparently, this currently has no effect.

• Quality: This will determine the quality of the glow effect, higher is better. There is little visual difference between 8 and 10.

• Iterations: The basic setting for how strong the glow will be. Equivalent to Preferences→ Graphics -> Rendering→ Render Glow - Strength.
• Strength: Additive strength of glow. Very low values are needed to see this effect. Start low.
• Luminance: Minimum luminance intensity necessary to consider an object bright enough to automatically glow.
• Warmth: Amount of warmth extraction to use (versus luminance extraction). 0 = lum, 1.0 = warmth.
  Often has little or no effect.
• Width: Glow sample size. Higher = wider and softer glow, but eventually it will become more pixelated.
• Alpha: Basically how bright the glow is allowed to get.

Many of these settings are also available via Preferences→ Graphics -> General.

• Draw Dist.: This sets the furthest distance the viewer will draw anything. High values will slow your FPS.
• Avi Count: Maximum number of non-impostor avatars to render in a scene. Very helpful for situations where many avatars are slowing your FPS.
• Avi Detail: Sets the render quality of the avatars. Higher is better quality.
• Avi Physics: Controls level of detail of avatar physics (such as chest physics). Higher is better.
• Particle Cnt.: Sets the maximum number of particles to render.
• Terr. Scale: Sets the quality of the default Linden Labs ground (terrain) texture. Requires a restart if changed.
• Terrain Qal: Sets the quality of terrain. High numbers mean more detailed terrain in the distance.
• Obj. Detail: Controls the detail of prims. Higher values produce greater detail for objects.
• Flexiprims: Controls level of detail of flexible objects. Higher means more detail.
• Tree Detail: Controls level of detail of vegetation. Higher numbers produce greater detail.
• Sky Detail: Controls vertex detail on the WindLight sky. Lower numbers will give better performance and less than lovely skies.

• Vig. Amount: Amount of vignette to apply. Please refer to this page for more info on the vignette feature.
• Vig. Power: Power of the vignette.
• Vig. Multiply: Multiply factor.

• Enable Draw Distance: If you disable this feature, the viewer will render past your set draw distance, but only if you then reduce draw distance. In other words, this setting will not provide limitless draw distance.¹⁾
• Dynamically adjust level of detail: This enables the feature that allows the viewer to dynamically adjust the level of detail in scene as you move further away from objects. It helps improve performance, it also can reduce the quality of the objects in the scene.
• Render only Objects Visible to the Camera: This allows the viewer only to process/draw those objects that are within the camera field of view and not hidden behind anything else. Usually this is a performance booster. Sometimes it can actually reduce performance especially when the scene/sim has few objects. Toggle to see if it helps or not.
• Anisotropic Filtering: Enables anisotropic filtering to improve texture quality. This setting may reduce your viewer's performance. For more information see this wikipedia page.
• Render Particles Attached to other Avatars: Enables the viewer to render any and all particles attached to/coming from other avatars.

• Anti-aliasing: Determines how sharp and smooth the edges of objects will be. On top level graphics cards, higher values have virtually no performance impact. On lower graphics cards, higher values can slow performance significantly.

• Texture Bumpiness: Controls the strength and resolution of normal and bump maps. You must toggle to check box below for changes to take effect.

The settings here are, as the name suggests, user interface aids. Some of the options are normally only accessible via the Advanced or Develop menus.

• Show Bounding Boxed for All Lights in Scene: Displays colored bounding boxes around all objects in your view which emit light.
• Show Light Radius for Selected Light(s): If you enable this, and then edit one or more objects which emit light, an orange shpere will show, indicating the radius for the light(s).
• Show Bounding Boxes for Objects in the Scene: Displays colored bounding boxes around all objects in your view.
• Show the Statistics Bar: Opens the Stats bar, where you can get detailed info about viewer and region performance.
• Show Detailed Camera Position Data: Display camera info in the lower right of the screen, in white text.
• Show Detail Texture Loading Information: Shows details about texture load and texture memory use, in the upper portion of the screen.
• Show RGB-I Color Values Under Cursor: Displays the Red, Green, Blue and Alpha values for whatever is under your mouse cursor. Note that the color of the light affects the color of objects; if you are trying to match colors, make sure you sure a pure white WL setting.
• Hightlight Transparent Objects in Red: Any objects with transparency will be highlighted. Can also be activated with Ctrl-Alt-T.
• Show the Scene as Wireframe: Switches the view to wireframe display mode; disable to switch back.
• Show the HUD attached to your avatar: If this is disabled, any worn HUDs will not be visible. Useful for doing screen capture.
• Slow-mo Your Avatar: Makes your movements go in slow motion (visible to you only).

• Force Appearance Update: Rebakes your avatar; useful in cases of bake fail.
• Set Window Viewer Size: Change the size of the viewer window.
• Show Debug Settings Menu: Opens the Debug Settings window.

This portion of the window gives a partial view of rendering statstics. It is a subset of the information shown in the Stats bar.

• Frames Per Second:The number of times per second your computer is redrawing (or refreshing) what's on the screen. Higher values mean a smoother experience.
• Bandwidth: How much data is being transferred between your computer and the Second Life world. This number varies wildly depending on what bandwidth settings you've used, where you are inworld, what's going on, and whether you're still loading some things (objects/textures/etc) that are in your field of view. If bandwidth is 0kbps, something may be wrong (you may be partially disconnected).
• KTris Drawn per Frame: Computer-generated 3D objects are built out of triangles (the basic geometric shape). This is a count of the number of triangles, or “tris”, in each frame of the current scene.
• KTris Drawn per Sec: This is a count of the number of triangles ('tris') drawn every second.
• Total Objects: The number of objects currently in view, which includes: prims, avatars, terrain patches, trees, particle groups, and water patches.
• New Objects: The number of objects being downloaded per second.
• Texture Count: The number of unique textures loaded by the viewer.

Many of the settings here duplicate those found in the Phototools Camera window. However, there are also some here which are not present in that window.

Some of the more requently needed settings from the Joytsick settings window, accessed from Preferences→ Move & View -> Movement.

• Left/Right: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Left/Right movement. If you find it difficult to move with precision, use lower scale values.
• Up/Down: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Up/Down movement.
• In/Out: Adjusts the sensitivity of the In/Out movement.
• Pitch: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Tilt movement.
• Yaw: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Spin movement.
• Roll: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Roll movement.
• Zoom Speed: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Zoom speed.
• Feathering: Setting the slider all the way to the right will make the camera very rigid, giving complete control to the joystick. Setting the slider all the way to the left will make the camera very fluid like the camera weighs a lot; good for fly-by shots, not good for framing.

• Zoom Axis Mapping: Controls which mouse axis the zooming function is mapped to (set to work with).
• Enable 3D Mouse: This turns on the 3D Mouse.
• Enable Zoom Control: In order for the zooming control to work, you must set the 'Zoom Mapping' above to '4'.
• Enable Auto Levelling: When enabled, the camera will always remain level.
• Use the 3D Mouse to move the avatar: The mouse will move your avatar.
• Use the 3D Mouse to move objects (building): Uses the 3D mouse to move objects when building and editing.
• Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen: This will show you the vertical field of view for the camera. In SL is possible to change the lens length just like in RL. The smaller the FOV the longer the camera lens. A 50mm lens has a FOV of 27.0 degrees. To adjust the FOV use the zoom slider bar below.
  Please see here for a table showing the relationship between FOV and Lens Focal Length (mm).
  Rember to disable this before taking pictures, or it will show in them.
• Show Detailed Camera Position Data: Display camera info in the lower right of the screen, in white text.

This tab is, in turn, divided into 3 sub tabs, as follows:

• View Angle: In real world terms this is a Zoom feature. This will change the field of view in you viewer window. It is the same as hitting Ctrl + 0 or Ctrl+8.
  NOTE: This will not function if you have flycam enabled (3D SpacenNavigator).
• Zoom Speed: Controls how fast/slow the camera will zoom in and out. Higher values produce slower and smother zoom.
• Camera Lag: Amount camera lags behind avatar motion (0 = none, 30 = avatar velocity).
• Camera Offset: Controls how far the camera is offset/distance from the default point of view.
• Cam. Smoothing: Controls how smoothly the camera starts and stops. Higher values produce smoother (and somewhat slower) movement.

• Mouse Sensitivity: Controls responsiveness of mouse when in mouselook mode.
• Display avatar & attachments in mouselook: Display avatar and attachments below neck while in mouselook. Default is OFF.
• Smooth Mouselook Movements: Smooths out motion of mouse when in mouselook mode.

• Clicking your avatar keeps camera position: Normally, clicking on your avatar resets the camera position. This option removes this behavior.
• Reset camera position after teleport: Normally, the camera position gets reset when teleporting (within a region). This option prevents this behavior.
• Disable minimum camera zoom distance: Disable the constraint on the closest distance the camera is allowed to get to an object.
• Allow the camera to move w/o constraints: Ignores the 'push' the simulator applies to your camera to keep it out of objects.
  Requires a restart to take effect.
• Reset camera position on avatar movement: If this is disabled and you move your avatar, the camera will not follow it.

If you have Intel Graphics HD, Intel Graphics HD2500 and Intel Graphics HD4000, and are using the 64bit version of Firestorm 5.0.7 or later, on Windows 10, refer to this page.

This issue is the result of recent updates of Win10, specifically KB3176938, KB3189866, KB3193494 and KB3194496.

Many users have reported that updating their graphics drivers has fixed the problem:

• If you use nVidia graphics, try updating your drivers to at least Nvidia 373.06 released October 6, 2016.
• AMD/ATI users can try updating to at least driver 16.10.1.

Should you not be able to upgrade the driver, read on.

• To uninstall these Windows updates, go to Programs & features > view updates > click and uninstall. Please be advised that uninstalling any update marked as a security update is done at your own risk.
• To keep windows from downloading the update again download this tool and run it to “hide” the update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3073930?utm_source=twitter#bookmark-1607.
• Note: “Hiding” one update will not prevent other, later updates. The FPS problem may return as other updates are installed and until Microsoft fixes this issue.

Please refer to this LL JIRA and this FS JIRA page for details and other suggestions.

If you suddenly sound like a man (and you aren't), or your friend suddenly sounds like a demon (and isn't), or you are hearing other forms of distorted voice, try this:

1. Right click the Speakers icon on your system tray and select Recording Devices.
2. Right click the Microphone and select Properties.
3. Switch to the Advanced tab.
4. Under Default Format drop down menu, select: 2 channel, 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD quality).
5. Untick “Enable Audio Enhancements”
6. Press OK and OK.
7. Relog if needed.

If you suddenly find that sounds do not play, things like button sounds or in-world object sounds, the possible cause is your default output format. Try this:

1. Right click the Speakers icon on your Windows PC system tray and select Playback Devices.
2. Right click the Speakers (or your chosen audio output) and select Properties.
3. Switch to the Advanced tab.
4. Under Default Format drop down menu, select: 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD quality).
5. Click Apply and OK.
6. Relog if needed.

If some characters now display as boxes, you will need to reinstall Windows font packs. Some of the more common font packs are Chinese, Japanese and Korean, though if you installed those and still see boxes, you will want to ask the person using those characters to tell you what language (or symbol set) they are so that you can install the appropriate font pack.

1. Log out of Firestorm.
2. Go to the Windows Start menu and choose Settings.
3. In the window that opens, click in the search field at the top right and type in “language”
4. Select Add a language from the search results.
5. Click the + Add a language option and select the language from the list. The contents of the window scrolls left and right.
6. Back in the Add a language section, click the newly added language and choose Options.
7. Click the top Download button. The language will download and install, and it may take some time.
8. Repeat this for each language pack you wish to install.
9. Now log into Firestorm; you should see the missing characters correctly rendered.

Error 0xc000007b when launching 64 bit Firestorm:

Try following these steps to get the Firestorm installer to reinstall the Visual C++ redistributables that come packaged with it:

1. First make sure you have the Firestorm installer handy in a place where you can easily access it when you get to the step where it's needed below. (You can download it from here, or from here if you need an older version than the current release.)
2. Go to the Windows Start Menu and choose Settings.
3. In the window that opens, click on “System Display, notifications, apps, power.”
4. In the next window go down to “Apps & features.”
5. Scroll down to the entry for “Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x86 Redistributable.” Click on it and choose “Uninstall” (the list won't necessarily update to show that it is uninstalled, but it is).
6. Click on “Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x64 Redistributable” and once again choose “Uninstall.”
7. Close that window.
8. Re-run the Firstorm installer. The installer window will now say “Modify Setup” (since FS is already installed) and will give you 3 options: “Repair”, “Uninstall” and “Close.” Click on “Repair.” Firestorm will reinstall the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributables that it ships with.
9. Restart your computer. You should be able to launch Firestorm without getting the error message now.

If you start experiencing graphics issues after a Win10 update, such as driver crashes, or simply very poor performance, the first thing to try is a full computer reboot.

If that doesn't help, reinstall your graphics card driver from the card maker's website, not from Windows. That is, from nVidia, AMD, or Intel.

If you have Intel HD graphics, refer to this page.

The most common cause for this is a non-default DPI value, or screen scaling. Refer to this page for tips on setting DPI/scaling to default.

Some Windows 10 users have experienced difficulty installing current versions of Apple's Quicktime software on their systems. Version 7.7.6 of Quicktime has been confirmed to install correctly on Windows 10 systems. You can download version 7.7.6 from the link below:

Quicktime 7.7.6 (link will take you to the 7.7.6 download page on Apple's website)

**Unfortunately the above link seems to no longer be valid as a source for Quicktime 7.7.6, as such the recommended alternative to allow playback of media streams that were previously handled by Quicktime is to upgrade to a newer version of Firestorm (version 5.0.1.52150 or newer), as these newer versions of Firestorm no longer depend on Quicktime to handle stream playback.

First try increasing Preferences → User Interface → 2D Overlay → UI Scaling. Another possibility is Preferencess → User Interface → Font → Font size adjustment.

This is most often caused by a high DPI scaling setting, usually 125% on most 2k displays. A viewer set to the same width as the display resolution (1920, for example), would extend beyond the display border. To correct this:

• Log out of Firestorm
• Right click the Firestorm shortcut and choose Properties
• In Properties, click the Compatibility tab
• Near the bottom, find and check “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”
• Click OK and Apply

When you launch Firestorm, it should display at the default DPI scale, 100%

Some Windows 10 updates change the machine ID used to create login credentials, resulting in Firestorm reporting “Failed to Decode Login Credentials”. The best way to deal with this is to wipe the stored credentials file, as explained here. Naturally, you will then have to retype the user name and password for all your accounts, when first logging in after deleting the credentials file.

Reported on Linden Lab's bug tracker BUG-139291

Firestorm stores usernames and passwords in an encrypted credentials file inside your user settings folder. This file can only be used on one computer, it can't be decoded on a different computer.

If you don't want the viewer to store passwords:

1. Launch the viewer but do not log in.
2. Uncheck both the Remember username and Remember password options (just to the right of the Log In button)
3. If there is a username listed in the Username field, click the Trashcan icon next to it. Repeat as desired for other stored credentials.

Firestorm may complain that it cannot decode the credentials when you launch the viewer. This can be due to actual corruption in the file, or because the file came from a different computer, or because of an operating system update. In some cases you can simply re-enter your credentials and the file will self-repair. If it warns you on each login, it will be necessary to delete the credentials file.

1. Launch Firestorm, then find your user settings folder by going to Preferences→ Network & Files -> Directories and click Open Settings Folder.
2. Quit Firestorm
3. Locate and delete the file called bin_conf.dat.

If you backup your settings, also delete the same file bin_conf.dat before attempting to use the restore option.

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

• Updating the viewer

• Crashing During Install or Startup

• Crashing While Running Firestorm

• Login Failures

• Texture Discarded Due to Insufficent Memory

• Graphics Crashes and Glitches

• How to Manually Clear Cache

• Clearing settings manually

• Full Clean Install of Firestorm

• Media Related

• Web Feed Items (Search, Web Profiles, or Destinations) Don't Work, Remain 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?

• Restore to Last Position - Workaround

• My avatar won't move

• My saved outfit is empty

• HUD issues

• Attachments Detach then Reattach at Login

• Current Outfit Folder Corruption

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

• I Am Missing Inventory

• Rezzed Items Have Vanished

• 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?

• ATI Graphics Issues

• Intel Graphics Issues

• Nvidia Graphics Issues

• Everything is Black

• I See Things Like Stars in the Sky

• My CPU is Always at 100%

• Laptop Dual Graphic Card Issues

• Crashing While Editing or Wearing Mesh

• Problems Navigating in Mouselook

• Firestorm Won't Open on my Secondary Monitor

• 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 10.9 Mavericks Problems

• Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

• Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan

• Mac Sierra (10.12) Issues

• Mac High Sierra (10.13) Issues

• Crash on Upload

• 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)

• Message About Account Compromised

• The "ExDepart Virus"

• I Can't Sit on Things

• Chat Lag

• "Couldn't convert the image to jpeg2000"

• Deleting Stored Passwords

• DNS Fail when Trying to Log in

• How to Get Inventory Back

• Login Fails Unless Cache is Wiped

• Object Contents Fail to Load

• Offline Instant Messages not delivered to email

• Web Profiles Not Displaying Properly

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.

Note: This is not the same as rainbow colors in-world.

If you see rainbow colors after logout and you have MSI True Color or f.lux installed on your system, do the following steps in order:

1. Uninstall MSI True Color if installed.
2. Install f.lux from https://justgetflux.com/ if not installed.
3. Uninstall f.lux using the f.lux uninstaller, not the Windows uninstaller from Windows programs & features / add/remove programs.
4. When running the uninstaller it will give you the option to reset to the windows default color profile; say Yes. (Running this uninstaller is the only way we have found to get rid of the MSI True Color profile.)

Refer to http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-12561. Also see the alternate workaround at the comment dated 13/Apr/17

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, 64-bit Operating System and affects other programs in addition to Second Life viewers. And it may happen on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

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.

• Right click the task bar and choose Task Manager. Alternatively, click the Start button and type Task Manager, then click on the result. Option 3, press Ctrl+Alt+Del and choose Task Manager from the list.
• 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 between each one:

• 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 & Cache → 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. (32-bit version only)
• Tip from a user: Windows users: If you're running CrashPlan, open the “Advanced” section of “Backup” settings and uncheck “Back up open files.

For additional suggestions, see the page on Severe Lag.

If things around you remain grey for a long time, or objects take a long time to pop into position, this is essentially because the data has 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 and other data to you. The best way to cope with this is to reduce the demand you make; in other words, reduce your draw distance, even to 12m or less, and wait until textures and objects 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Another possibility is that DNS look-up is failing. Try changing DNS to google; see this page for details.

• 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 on Windows, 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 mesh items, specifically, never rez, see Mesh Issues.

• 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 or having other issues, including very slow rez. Please see this page for more.