Ingame "Freezing"

Hello all, I've just returned to SL after a long hiatus, and am experiencing a rather annoying problem. I'm just curious if this is common, or if anyone else is experiencing the same thing, and if there's anything I can do to fix it.

I can login just fine, but every time I play now I will literally just "freeze" after a random amount of time. NO error message, NO crash message, I just freeze up. I can spin around, but I cannot move. I can't highlight things and "try" to interact, but nothing happens. I can't chat, I can't IM. After a short amount of time my mini-map goes a shade of red. It's really annoying when you're in the middle of IMing with someone, and I see the mini-map go red because I have no idea how long I've been rambling to myself.

I have to close Second Life, and go back in, and see how long I last until I freeze again.

Does this scenario happen to anyone else??
Is it common??
Any tips to fix it??

I'm running Windows XP Pro. Pentium 4, 3.00 Ghz with 2 Gb of RAM. ATI RADEON 800XT Pro with the latest drivers.

I've uninstalled/reinstalled.
I've deleted the cache.
I've defragged my hard drive.
I've cleaned my hard drive.
I've update Windows, Video Drivers and Audio Drivers.
I've cleaned the registry.
I've contacted support.

I'm at my wits end here. It's getting so it's not even worth playing because I never know when I'll just freeze up.

I have run Second Life with NO ISSUES on this computer in the past. (Quite a while ago actually.)

Any ideas?

Your internet connection might be going out or flickering.

Second Life is stupid like that. I'll be playing, my wireless internet connection will flicker for 2 seconds, and I have to relog.

Hmmm, interesting thought. I wonder how I could test this theory.

I wouldn't think that's the problem since I have no problem running other things, and I do a lot of gaming, etc. over the internet, but maybe SL is pickier?

Maybe it's time to install that new NIC card I bougth?

Please keep the ideas coming...

I'm still curious if this particular thing happens to anyone else, and if they've found a fix...

Well most games can quickly recover from a flicker. If I'm playing Garry's Mod, it'll just "lag" for a second.

Because I'm on a wireless internet connection, there's a bubble on the bottom of my screen that notifies me when I connect/disconnect. It'll come up with "disconnected from 'blahblah'" and instantly I can't move in SL.

My brother has the exact same problem..

It's probably what's happening to you since it's completely 100% what happens to me... :/

But I'm not an expert...

I'm on a wired connection, and it's pretty solid. I don't think this is my problem. I'm seeing a few cases here and there of others having similar issues. Hoping to hear if anyone has found a fix.

Thanks Tor for your thougths!

I've experienced this a few times myself. Just a random, sparodic total freeze. Sometimes it recovered and back to normal for a while but mostly it's relog time to fix. The last time this happened was a month ago when I decided to try something that I thought was totally unrelated to my problem but thought I'd try it anyway. I rebooted my router and cable modem (unplug the power for 2 or 3 mins and replug in). Haven't had the problem since. But since my problem with the freezes was so intermittant that I can't be sure it's fixed........or if that was the problem in the first place. It's worth a shot and so easy to do. Who knows, I may be the genius that found a fix for it.

I'm using an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200. I didn't have the problem you're describing, however I had to learn that having the latest drivers isn't the best.

In my case the latest drivers would cause Second Life to randomly crash on me after 1-30 minutes. Sometimes my whole system would freeze and the only way out was a cold reboot. After trying several alternative drivers from companies other than ATI I found that the only way I could fix the issue was downgrading the drivers back to a previous official ATI version.

Issues first occured after an update in March or April 2006. Ever since I found the fix in December 2006 SL has been running as flawlessly as before. This laptop here will celebrate it's 4th Birthday on November 24th.

So, I have no idea whether the driver could be the problem. Also if you're a gamer downgrading is probably not a favorable idea because it will hamper other games. But it's worth a try...you can always upgrade again.

Good luck!!!
Tina Marlin

Hello,

I came back to SL after over a year away, and I'm experiencing identical problems. Prior to last night, the freezes used to be sporadic and occured maybe once every hour or two. It wasn't more than a minor concern. As of last night, however, I cannot stay online more than 5-8 minutes without experiencing the "freeze". I can spin, but I cannot move or interract with game objects. My quicktime video (if watching TV in-game) or voice conversations are unaffected, and I can stay indefinately and use both those facilities while "frozen" in game. This gives me an idea that its not my ISP or internet connection, but something specific to my connection to the SL servers.

I've attempted to connect since last night on both my computers (one running XP and the other vista), using the new RC released yesterday as well as 1.18.3(5). I've also tried the nicholaz client. In all cases, my symptoms are the same. in 5-8 minutes, I freeze and have no choice but to exit and come back in.

I've disabled programs known to interfere such as antivirus (bitdefender in my case), rebooted my network hardware (cable modem and firewall), and verified all my drivers, especially video, as well as windows updates, were up to date. I also tried turning down my graphics and disabling all audio within the game, only to have zero difference in my issue. Still 5-8 minutes and crash. I even started timing the crashes to see if it was an exact thing, but they varied, no session lasting more than roughly 8 minutes.

I've played other online games today, Multiplayer Hellgate: London, Everquest II, anda few minutes in EQ1. I had no issues whatsoever .

This issue is really starting to bother me Regarding SL. Can anyone help with at least a confirmation this is happening to them more frequently as of last night?

-Alex Turner

This has happened to me on and off pretty much since I started about a year ago. It's not a network connection problem; I'm an expert and I can recognize and diagnose those problems. It seems to me like it used to happen more than it does now; at times it would happen almost once per hour.

It's a real nuisance when building: you can do a lot of work on a linked set and lose it. Scripting too, only in that case you can copy the text and save it to paste back in when you log back in.

First symptom is I can't move and I don't see any chat or IMs from others. The bandwidth usage bar is black and stays black. A few minutes later, the minimap goes pink.

I have experienced this quit abit the last month or so and so have a lot of othe people I know. It has to do with the SL server you log into which is the same everytime for each account. Apparently they do not have the loads balanced on the servers which causes this problem. Hope someday they get their act together.

I have been having this problem with increasing frequency. I am also currently not able to login which, based on the SL blog, suggests I login to Dallas (I am based in the northeastern US).

I had thought it was a result of upgrading to the latest version of SL, but I do have the same issue with a prior version as well as Nicholaz's viewer (though I tend to doubt the network code would be tweaked much).

I am about ready to give up SL. I get frozen after about 2-15 minutes.

Anyone have an idea as to how we can help them diagnose this?

Try creating a new av. If the post above is correct, and if you're lucky enough to get a better server, things will be better. I'm not sure I buy the explanation (the server you communicate most with is the sim you're in) but I'm sure I don't know enough to deny it.

And I do have an alt, and it doesn't seem to have the problem -- or if so, not as much. So, one data point seems to corroborate the claim.

When you "freeze" and the minimap goes red, you have lost the connection between client and server. Nicholaz calls this "redmapping", and if you use his newer clients, they actually put up a warning dialog as soon as they detect that this has happened. Very nice feature - at least it keeps you from wasting time.

OP or others experiencing this, do you also get a lot of packet loss? Are you running other programs that put a lot of network traffic over your link periodically (i.e. antivirus programs that update their databases automagically).

Usually this indicates some sort of traffic congestion between your PC and the Linden's server. I don't think it's a load balancing issue on their end. It happens frequently on dubious connections such as wireless.

Same problem here. I just grind to a halt in minutes. and BIG packet losses. My isp is solid, I download at 1269 kbps. I am starting to hate Linden labs.

I have been having these problems the past couple of days. I was told by friends that it's happening a lot mostly to people on the East Coast, but I don't know if that's true. I get that flicker too. Prior to when this started 2 days ago, this only happened when it was announced that SL was having problems. This time there's no mention in the blog about any freezing problems. It was better tonight though. The freeze-up/hourglass is only in SL...if I alt tab over to Windows, no hourglass. Sometimes going to Windows and back ends the freeze a little sooner. Other times it won't end so I have to close SL.

Btw, Alex, it was happening to me so much today, I couldn't do much. All I wanted to do is organize my inventory and change some permissions on some items. Just clicking to open Properties would give me the hourglass.....or trying to open a notecard to see if it was something I wanted to keep. This was random but enough to slow me down a lot. I was in IM's with a friend while this was going on and she also got one of the longest freezes the same time I did. When it was over we both said "wow long lag spike" at the same time. Last night she was off SL for 10 minutes while DJ'ing thinking she was still in the club and that we were all just being quiet. Her stream was unnaffected.

Anyway, we're both on the East Coast.

I disagree that it has much to do with congestion. The client and server lose the ability to communicate even when client and server *could* communicate just fine.

This problem is the result of a poor design choice, a bug, or a flaw in the protocol between client and server. It's a problem caused by LL software, not (directly) by your service provider or home network. It might be triggered when a lot of traffic gets reordered in the network, but networks are explicitly allowed to do this and protocols that depend on it not happening will have problems.

Service providers and network equipment vendors go to great lengths to avoid packet reordering in the network, because it causes less efficient communications, more packet retransmission, and other problems especially in real-time protocols. However, it will happen and it is allowed by the protocol specifications, and applications and protocols must be designed to tolerate it. SL isn't.

I have had the same problem in the past...but only sometimes...

Now I have a new laptop, I updated all drivers and also the firmware of my router (including replugging), but SL is still not running longer than 3-5 minutes.

Checking internet connection was also "successful", it's okay.

I made also a "ping" test. only 2 packages were lost of 100...not so bad I think (hope).

Has any of you an idea what to do else?

Is it because of vists, my graphic card, the RAM or what?

my technical stuff:

Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium,

Processor & Cache Memory Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T9500/T9300/T8300/T8100 : 2.6 GHz - 2.1 GHz, 6/3MB On-Die L2 Cache, FSB 800 MHz;
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7700/T7500/T7250 : 2.4 GHz - 2.0 GHz, 4/2MB On-Die L2 Cache, FSB 800 MHz
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5750/T5550/T5450/T5250 : 2.0 GHz -1.5 GHz 2MB On-Die L2 Cache, FSB 667 MHz


Chipset Mobile Intel® PM965 Express Chipset +ICH8M

Main Memory 3G
Display 15.4" WXGA Resolution 1280x800, Color-Shine (Glare-type),Asus Splendid Video Intelligent Technology

Video Graphics & Memory NVIDIA® GeForce® 9500M GS, 512MB External 512MB VRAM , TurboCache: 768M with 1G system memory, 1280M with 2G system memory


Hard Drive 2.5" 9.5mm SATA
250GB,

/me wonders if any of the people having this problem and NOT using wireless are using Comcast as an ISP.

I am not using wireless

Its a normal LAN connection