1.3.6 (Build 2) Cascade Failure

Every attempt to use the Appearance dialogue causes a spontaneous reboot. This bug started when I got the 1.3.6 update. Everything on my system is up to date, clean, defragged, and verified stable. And I have nothing running in the background, no AV, no Firewall. No, I'm not running behind a Proxy Server, nor a Router, nor a Switch. The problem isn't affected by switching Catalyst driver versions. A clean uninstall/reinstall of the SL client to a new directory also had no effect. My system has a Celeron III (Tualatin) cpu, which runs extremely cool.
This is definitely not a hardware failure, nor overheating. Seriously, don't waste your time posting the usual 'fixes' here. Whatever you're going to suggest, I've already done.

I believe there might be corrupted or infected files in the current install routine, because a lot of flaky behaviour started with the latest release including, loss of permission to modify Avatar Shape (see screenshot), lack of responsiveness to keyboard commands, screen flashing, failure of inventory to load, and many others. The problems have been piling up at an alarming rate. There are other recent threads reporting similar issues, so this is likely to be an actual problem with SL. (Yes, I've filed the usual docket of bug reports).

At this point, I've uninstalled SL to protect my system from potential damage or data loss.

I don't know if you've checked it... You probably have... but sometimes the GPU can overheat however cool the CPU is. I'd suggest you check the fan on your graphics card is spinning properly... The screen flashing is a sign of graphics memory problems, and GPU overheat is one thing that can cause this.

Anyway... I'll assume that's not it... as you suggested, it's likely you've already tried that. And wow... it's years since I heard of anyone using a celeron... Honestly I didn't realise they were even capable of running SL.

The permissions thing is, I think a client problem in SL, and I have come across it before. I *think* that an uninstall/reinstall of SL (ensuring the cache is cleared, will fix that.

Also, and this is a guess only. LL have made some fairly big changes recently, and a few people have reported graphics problems. Maybe they're using some features of OpenGL that older cards don't support very well. Yes, this would be a SL problem, but a fault, I dunno.

Of course, you mentioned no AV, no FW ... Maybe you just have a virus.

I've experienced spontaneous rebooting and problems in inventory loading since the latest upgrade too (see my post in Bug Discussion) I'm not running a celeron though, but an athlon.

Have you run a very thorough hard disk scan to see if you have any bad blocks on your hard drives?

The VisionTek Radeon 9200 I'm using runs so cool that it doesn't even have a dedicated fan on the GPU. I do have a fan installed above the video card anyway. But the Celeron III Tualatin (which FYI is really a PIII Tualatin with FSB locked at a lower speed, and has fully implemented SSE) and the Radeon 9200 are two of the lowest voltage, coolest chips ever made. The temp never hits 90 degrees F. I use no overclocking, and the machine was thoroughly bench-tested for stability a couple of months ago when I upgraded ram to 512mb. Also, I'm able to run OpenGL benchmark programs which are even more GPU intense than SL for 12 continuous hours without any artifacts, corruption, etc.

And definitely no virus or Trojan onboard. I use online virus checkers several times a week, and all my email is virus scanned by MSN before it gets to my hard drive.

The permissions bug was temporarily fixed by clean installing the client, but reappeared after 3 days. It can't be a cache corruption problem either, because I wipe the SL cache after every run.

You are correct that the Radeon 9200 does not support the most recent version of the OpenGL pixel shader (1.4 I believe). But SL claims compatibility with the Radeon 8xxx and 9xxx series cards, though we know that compatibility is more theory than reality. Supposedly the next release of the ATI driver will contain specific fixes for SL. But the same was said before the current release, and there wasn't anything.

Yes, I saw your post. And I keep reminding Dan, Colin, and Kelly that problems of this type have suddenly appeared on a variety of hardware platforms since the 1.3.6 release.

Yes, I did that as part of the maintenance routine between uninstalling the SL client and then reinstalling it to a new directory. In fact, I do that as a matter of course after any crash which shuts down or reboots the system. I also low-level format each of my hard drives once a month, both for security and maintenance reasons.

I'll also mention that the problem isn't likely to be related to fragmentation of the Windows swap file, because I don't use a permanent swap file...it's wiped on every reboot or shutdown.

How do you configure windows to do that? My understanding of fragmentation and its causes would lead me to believe that this would create a MORE fragmented swap file, not a less fragmented one.

I believe you can specify the location of your swapfile, Ama. If it's on another drive, that'd work. If it's on your C: or main OS's drive, you're going to have more fragments then you would otherwise, BlackAdder.

Aye, that you can Catherine, and for the record that is how I do it - one partition dedicated to a swap file. I just wouldn't see the point of wiping the entire swap file every boot if it had its own drive. In other words I can't see a way where wiping it every boot and starting over would cause less fragmentation, while I suppose it could just have zero effect.

Sorry it took so long to reply.

It's a Registry hack of course. I use X-Setup Pro (which is still freeware for personal use); it has that specific System setting. I remember that using a temporary swap file used to be a system option in DOS-based versions of Windows.

Yes, the file has it's own partition. So at each boot, it starts out with no fragmentation at all. And whatever fragmentation develops over time disappears the next time the system boots. So, I don't ever need to run a Defrag utility which can also do the swap file.

It also minimizes the risk of problems caused by swap file corruption.

The main reason for deleting the file at shutdown is security though. I imagine that having to rebuild the file at each boot causes a minimal performance hit, but everything has its downside...