Freeze and crash recent development

Hi,
I'm running an iMac 3.06 GHz 500 HD with 4.8 gigs ram (800 MHz) and the NVIDIA 8800 (512 mb vram) on the latest OS and the latest SL.

In the past couple of days, I seem to be freezing and crashing with regularity. Hardware memory is at minimum in SL settings, everything at MID in graphics, don't know what else I can do to minimize possibility. Is anyone else having this glitch/issue?

Thanks.

weird,

I'm running on a Mini core solo and it's working great on Leopard and 1.20.1 here.

That's why I'm so puzzled about this. I can't stay on for long before it freezes and then eventually crashes. I've tried removing emitters, changing settings, nothing seems to be working. None of my non-SL functions are having any difficulties, and I'm wondering if sometimes just installing a fresh version of the software can fix anomalous problems like these.

I do some of my work in this environment so I'm really hoping I can find a solution soon. Any input at all is greatly appreciated.

Look at the bright side... You can at least connect.

Ever since the latest viewer I can only connect to Second Life one out of every 10 to 20 attempts, says it can't resolve the server every other time. Was working just fine previous to this viewer and no settings have changed on my end network wise...

On the off chance I get connected, the second I step over a Sim Boundary I end up flying off into the wild blue yonder until I eventually get disconnected. Ready for the kickers? If I select quit during this process it quits just fine... Also, if I boot over to Bootcamp I can connect just fine however the Vista 64 drivers provided by Apple have an issue with Glow Maps in Second Life so it crashes the driver every-time. (At least I can connect there)

Linden Lab's Mac Support is laughable at best, they should truly be embarrassed at the quality of their client for the Mac...

I'm stuck using an old Lenovo T60p Laptop (on the same network I might add) since Linden can't figure out how to code for a (very limited hardware wise) platform.

I feel your pain.

Yikes! Sorry to hear about the troubles. Yep, since the latest version I've also had the connection problems that weren't occurring before. Hopefully there will be some good knowledge being infused into the Mac pool of expertise and these glitches will begin to sort themselves out.

Glass half full and all that.

Perhaps an different version of SL?

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Old_versions

Reloaded the earlier version; now I still freeze but it eventually comes out of it without crashing. The thing is, I didn't have this problem at all when I first started on this 'puter. I'm scratching my head, wondering what the heck is going on. This puppy should be able to handle pretty much any settings, yet even with things set to minimum (which I definitely didn't have to do just a week ago), it goes wonky.

Any other thoughts on this greatly appreciated.

In the older version of the SL client, I'd still been hanging but not crashing quite as much. It did start to get more frequent with more crashes, and I went into preferences and played around with things I knew nothing about.

One particular thing seems to have made a difference, because yesterday I had no hangs, let alone crashes.

Preferences>Graphics>Hardware Options>uncheck Enable VBO

I don't know what the function is, but it is the one variable that's made the difference between hang-freeze-crash ad nauseam and smooth sailing.

Hope this helps some perplexed, frustrated mac user out there.

hey!

VBO = VertexBufferObjects - i have vbo on with my iMac ATIx1600 128MbVram

with 512 mbVram try to set in your slViewer:
Preferences/Graphics/Hardware Options/
Antialiasing - disable
Texture Memory to 64 or 128

run the viewer in window_mode not in fullscreen_mode and as a single task

safari + video_stream can also freeze your machine when your running sl at the same time

Hi, I have about the same configuration as yours and have been experiencing the same problems lately. It seems the rainbow ball appears either when an action and a camera move occurs at the same time, even if there is no lag and when only 2 avatars are present on the whole sim. It seems that the interuptions go on more and more frequently ending in a total freeze of SL and even in one occasion of the computer ( couldn t even "force out" so had to crash land.
This is so weird because i have restricted the settings to low on a machine that can use top settings in other environments. Also more and more when i log out, SL does not close or I get a message stating the programme has crashed.

This problem is very irritating when you build and move around with the camera often.
I think that Linden should provide another answer than go back to the older viewer!!!
But then what can one expect from them?

Hi mj and Malko

I too have a similar configuration and have experienced all the problems you've had. I found things somewhat better with the OnRez Viewer: http://viewer.onrez.com/, but I have had amazing results with the Cool SL Viewer: http://radio-boomslang.shacknet.nu/~bb/articles/cool-viewer-mac/. It's based on the 1.19.1(4) release and the site has a link to a download site for that (Memo to self - don't be too quick to discard earlier versions). No more freezes or hangs on quitting. I can even do other things such as check email and surf the web without any problems. Apparently if you use Voice, it's not good for that, but I don't, so I'm happy.

You may be interested in this discussion by fellow-sufferers, er Mac users, here: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7779

hey!

slviewer ships with libopenal.dylib
with other gameengines ive had crashes cos of openal mixup

in preferences/audio & video /streaming preferences
play streaming music -> disabled
play streaming media -> disabled
automatically play media -> disabled

i also have voice disabled

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Francesca, this is very useful information. All the other things I've tried, including the great suggestions by people in here... OnRez looks like nuclear tomato soup and I was looking for another alternative viewer. I'll be trying Cool S Viewer right quick! Thankya thankya!

I'm not that keen on OnRez either, but Cool SL really is the answer for me. Hope it works for you too.

Latest Mac build of Cool viewer:

http://hyangreflections.blogspot.com/

Works great here!

Thank you both for the Cool SL Viewer info. I'm downloading it now.

Also, the rc seems to have some fixes that are worth checking out. No issues with it yet, other than an odd freeze/crash which I'm pretty sure had to do with a beyond-mega-prim that was encroaching on several parcels including mine. Definitely worth checking out.

When Mac is busy showing details of prim clothes in zoomed mode, it begins to crash and freeze the entire comp.
I keep things under control while unchecking the basic shaders to work... but after one hour, it gets really bad and having these repeating freezees...
Imac3,06Ghz, Geforce 8800S

I have a 2.4 GHz iMac with 2 GB ram (800 MHz) and ATI Radeon HD26000 (256 MB vram) also with the latest Leopard version and the latest SL Mac Viewer.

Objects created with the current Mac viewer can not be seen when the distance is greater than about 100 meters. The same objects created with the current Windows viewer can be seen as far as 512 meters. I tested this by creating an 8x8x8 cube with each viewer. Only the cube created with the Windows viewer could bee seen at 512 meters. I posted a JIRA but someone told me that this is not something that will be taken care of soon.

Did you have the same problem or has anybody else encountered that problem or is it just me and my setup ?

I have the new iMac 3.06 w 4G ram, GeForce 8800GS card at my university office and I'm having the same issue. It freezes up every few minutes. Possibly it's bandwidth? I have a year old an iMac at home with only 2G ram and it very seldom crashes. It's frustrating because I manage 4 sims.

thank you for this tip. the new viewer would crash when trying to launch. but now with this VBO unchecked it loads just fine and actually runs better then with the older viewer.

L

As it seems that mac drivers for the 8800 graphic card are lame, it seems that unchecking this options makes SL runs better...still testing....

The last two mac updates are equally agonizing. They crash, freeze, and auto disconnect you at almost every second teleporting. Another thing that frustrated me is the long processing time for taking snapshot at high resolution. No to mention the same task only require one click under xp environment. I have not choice but to boot in xp for any serious task.

Please do something, Lindens!

I have just dashed out to buy a new imac G5 with similar configuration to most mentioned, due to my old mac, (18 months old) now having an incompatible graphic card following the release of 1.20. (imac graphic card not upgradable in my model. ().

Got home, plugged in shiny new mac, downloaded SL client. Guess what. Same problem. ( Running Imac G5 Intel 3.06 GHz, 4 Gig RAM, 500 MB Vid RAM

SL Freezes when panning with camera and Mac also freezes. Lasts anything from 2 to 5 minutes but does usually recover rather than crash.

I'm using iMac8.1, 2.4 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo. Not sure tbh what any of it means, but still, it expected a better performance than with my cruddy laptop before. I was running fine until the recent update. Now i can't rezz for a good 30 minutes sometimes, i crash every few hours, and spend majority of time freezing. My connection is one of top speed, i have have everything down low on the graphics... I'm sick of it too be honest. Even with a less impressive iMac, i still should be able to run SL beautifully.

Lot's of guesses, lots of reports, lot's of trials. It is a graphic driver issue. Driver on your Mac and not the SL client. However both seem to be incompatible.

There are some ways to improve the behaviour with OpenGL settings. You can google for it, but it's not an universal cure.

So far the best results were with non-windlight viewers like 1.19. Check out hyangreflections.blogspot.com