graphics_crashes_and_glitches

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note also the (apparent) interaction with Chrome.

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

Please try the following - but NOT while logged in.

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

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

At least one person has reported getting this error when starting the viewer on a secondary monitor. No known solutions at this time, other than running the viewer on the primary.

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

• Turn off all other applications to see if one of them is causing the problem.
• Viewer freezes while “Loading world…“ see here.
• If you have chat saving enabled, and have a large number of chat transcript files, these could be causing the freezes. (Ref. FIRE-11322.) Try moving your chat transcripts elsewhere and see if the freezing stops.
  You can find your chat transcripts by going to Preferences→ Network & Files -> Directories→ Conversation logs and transcripts location; click the Open button.
• Set Preferences → Network & Files → Directories → Cache Size to maximum (9984MB or the maximum space available, whichever is less)
• Ensure that your antivirus software is not scanning the viewer cache folder. See Whitelisting the Viewer in Anti Virus Software for more information.
• If you have ever enabled “Full Res Textures”, disable this setting. Top menu bar, Developer→ Rendering → Full Res Textures (dangerous). Ensure that this is NOT checked. (Ctrl-Alt-Q to enable Developer, if it isn't.)
• Advanced → Debug Settings → Set FastCacheFetchEnabled to FALSE - then relog.
  Ctrl-Alt-D to enable Advanced, if it isn't.
• Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings → Viewer Texture Memory Buffer - raise this as high as it will go. Then relog. (64-bit version only)
• Mac with Bitdefender: Refer to this SL bug report for a possible explanation: mac freezes if tabbing away after teleport since macOS Mojave 10.14.3
• Tip from a user: Windows users: If you're running CrashPlan, open the “Advanced” section of “Backup” settings and uncheck “Back up open files.”
• Tip from a user: Windows users: If you have “Magic Control Technology Display Utility” (MCTDUtil.exe), disable it. See https://www.file.net/process/mctdutil.exe.html.
• Tip from a user: Linux users: Turn off compositing, see if it helps.
• Freezes when another avatar enters/leaves region:
  • One version of this is an old bug, mostly gone now, that was sometimes solved by a region restart. We don't know if that will still help the problem, but you could try it.

For additional suggestions, see the page on Severe Lag.

See The World Is Blurry.