New install does not work!!!

Big thanks to Earl Dinken for posting his findings - we've confirmed that if you're running in Thousands vs. Millions, you'll probably experience a crash. So if you're crashing, check that first!

However there's apparently at least one more issue causing a crash and we're trying to track it down. As can been seen in the forum post, it seems to affect a wide variety of platforms, so any further details would help - especially any "I did this and it stopped crashing!" hints.

I have some volunteers (thanks, guys!) and we're working on getting a test build to them. I'll keep posting as I learn more. (Or until I fall asleep; I've been here since the deploy started this morning.)

I just found something that fixed it for me since some were getting results from changing to millions of colors. I was running two monitors, both millions of colors. I disabled the secondary one and tried SL. Didn't work. I then turned BOTH monitors to thousands of colors and tried SL. Didn't work. I then turned both back to millions and it worked!

So those still crashing with millions previously enabled, change it to thousands, try SL (I dunno how important this step is...), then change back to millions.

Hopefully that helps some!

Brilliant. That solved my problem too. Thanks, Earl.

Okay, so one last update.

We have identified at least one more problem beyond the thousands/millions issue, and have done extremely preliminary testing on a possible fix. FYI, the fix we tried appeared to correct things for one volunteer, but not for another. Our suspicion is that the cause is timing related - i.e. it may occur more or less at random, and based on a variety of system factors, and for whatever reason some systems may be particularly prone to it. Therefore, we don't have tremendous confidence in an understanding of the cause yet.

After further exploration and testing, we plan on posting an optional viewer tomorrow.

Thanks for everone's help.

SL has run fine for me all afternoon.

PowerBook G4
1.67 GHz PowerPC G4
Mac OS x 10.3.9

The beautiful machines with the creative people are having problems, especially those w/30" cinema displays.

Mac PPC G5, OS X 10.4.8
Dual 2.7 GHz, 4 GB DDR SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL graphics Card with 256 MB RAM
Cinema Display (30"

Note: Changing resolutions (2560 X 1600) to anything else does not resolve the issue, nor does changing the number of thousands vs. millions colors.

All previous versions of SL worked very well, stunning actually. This latest version will not even launch.
--------------
Unfortunately the temporary test Linden Beta download seems even more unstable. The full screen stretch on the SL window creates a crash on this 30" Cinema. Keeping the window about at 66% seems OK. Wait for the final fix. Memory leak, perhaps?

switch to millions of colors I did that and it worked for me

I have problems with the music causing my SL to crash? Some points it is find and plays the music. Other times i hit the play button and it crashes? Any idea it is really frustrating...

Thx

Same here, switching to 32bit pixel depth fixed the problem

I have two G4 iBooks...a 12 " and a 14"

Both running 10.4.8 with 1.5 GB RAM. THe 12" is 1.33 MHz, the 14" is 1.42.

The new release worked on the 14", but would not even get to the splash screen on the 12".

I tried everything I could think of...reinstall, redownload and reinstall, removing the cache files, repairing permissions, running the system maintenance programs, deleting other logs and caches...I even did a clean reinstall of OSX.

Nothing worked until I reformated the drive and started from scratch. Luckily I have a couple of big external HDs to back stuff up to...but at least it works now.

Ethan

My apologies for claiming we'd have a fix for the Mac crash ready today. We're still trying to isolate the problem - it's very hard to repro, but we're starting to have some luck with one machine in the Linden office.

It looks like the bulk of reports we're seeing are due to the "Thousands" vs. "Millions" of colors issue. Of course, if you're reading this far in the thread, you've probably tried that and it hasn't worked for you. We understand, and are chasing down the reported crashes, but it appears that there are multiple causes.

...

To address one possible source of crashes, we have created a new viewer build. The build has NOT been through a full QA cycle, so USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. This build also does not have fixes for the "Thousands of colors" issue, so please make sure you have thoroughly attempted that direction before you try this out.

You can download the viewer from:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/007377d5-c366-4fa7-8278-9174eb4aa5b0/SecondLife_1_12_3_4.dmg

NOTE: Practice safe downloading - don't download binaries from servers you don't trust without using appropriate defensive measures such as running malware detectors. You should be incredibly skeptical about following download links found on forums. (There, have I scared you enough? Paranoia is a good thing.)

* Don't run this out of the dmg - drag it to your applications folder. (Don't laugh - I do that! It'll crash in 1.12.3, but we'll fix it.)

* Make sure you're in "Millions" of colors mode, not "Thousands". To do this, go to System Preferences, select Display, and look for the Colors setting. If you have multiple monitors, try setting them all to Thousands and then back to Millions, just to be sure.

Try this out and let us know if you see different behavior - email me directly at [email=josh@lindenlab.com]josh@lindenlab.com[/email] and/or reply to the forum.

Joshua: I was confused is this another new version or the same one I tried yesterday?

The bottomline on this test is that non-performed like the others...

• Double-click on icon
• SL client opens a window, its white
• Windows fills with black -in a normal situation the next thing I would see is the SL interface and landscape
• Application crashes and the Apple Report and SL crashreporter appears.
• I now bend my head and cry...

I also did an experiment which may or may not be a helpful clue.

Trying the client with displays set to thousands has adifferent crash behavior. Rather than crashing instantly upon startup (like in millions) and the app closing, the SL client freezes and requires a Force Quit.

So there you go I hope you get it fixed soon.

well, i have found a solution. everytime i log off, i have to uninstall both sl and the entire second life aplication support in my library ([user]/library/application support/second life) then reinstall the application. of course, all my preferences are gone, and i have to put up with idiot help pop ups (you are sitting, yay!).

it works, but i dread having to log off. there has to be a better way.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Echo Iddinja
I know what the bug is related too now.

if you

a) nuke your prefs and nuke the SL binary. (use spotlight to search for second life and remove everything you find
b) Download and install a new SL binary
c) Open SL, it should open just fine. You'll noticed it has a new fancy login screen.
d) Login to SL.
e) Zoom the window
f) Logout of Second Life
g) Quit SL
h) Reopen SL and it'll crash on opening.

What's I think is happening here is the new spiffy login screen doesn't like the window being above a certain size. I'm not sure how you set the window size (perhaps in the prefs file?) but I'm going to experiement and see if i can get it to open at 800x600 or something and see if I can get it to load without crashing.


Edit: Here's the error that happens.
Second Life(22593,0x178dc400) malloc: *** error for object 0x16b94bd0: incorrect checksum for freed object - object was probably modified after being freed, break at szone_error to debug
Second Life(22593,0x178dc400) malloc: *** set a breakpoint in szone_error to debug



Found it.

In Library/Application Support/SecondLife/user_settings

edit the file settings.xml

look for these lines at the bottom:

<!--SL viewer window height-->
<WindowHeight value="600"/>

and

<!--SL viewer window width-->
<WindowWidth value="800"/>

If you change them to width = 800, height = 600, Second Life will no longer crash on start.

So at least we have a workaround until LL decides to fix the client.

Also, I just noticed that if you have the login screen up and hit the Zoom button on the window. Boom , instant crash.

EDIT: I just tried the new client posted in this thread, and it crashes in exactly the same manner.

Thanks, Echo - it looks like we're dealing with at least 4 bugs that cause an identical crash. Wheee.

* Running from DMG (stop laughing!) - has a temporary workaround
* Running in Thousands of Colors - has a temporary workaround
* Changing the default window size - has a temporary, if extremely annoying workaround
* The crash addressed in the viewer I posted a link to (it is resolving the crash for some users), actually related to the bouncing dock icon of all things - no workaround

We'll be putting out a new viewer as soon as we have fixes ready and adequately tested.

Ok im having a different problem since update. After I log in I can tp once or twice then I cant. I have to re log to get anywhere.
Any ideas?

http://www.appzapper.com/

That tool will deleted the app (when you drag it onto the AppZapper window) but be careful and uncheck the last checkbox (probably) or it will delete your download also.

After you zap it i have found you can drag it out of the DMG onto your desktop again and run fine. But it will crash again (for me) if you quite and restart. I think this is the screen expanded default. I use a 30" Cinema Display.

Anyway, it would be nice if Second Life would acknowledge this problem on their blog instead of complaining about bandwidth and asking us to re-invent their customer service policies.

SS

SL will not runn at all on my mac.....powerpcG5...dl 1.8.....osx 10.4.8 (tiger)
program run fine before the update....now crashes when started...I tryed switching miilion/thou ...makes no diff wont run.
When starting program i get a black screen for one second then...crash
I tryed to reload last old program and it tryed to run... but stopped and requested update to new program....
This new update is a total failure.. I expect something better from a service when im paying for it !!!!!

BobbieG5 ( I like that name!) I have the exact same behavior you describe. There is is no fix and now the weekend so no Linden activity. When will we get to the service back that we pay for?

Read this post and take action...

/164/eb/145830/1.html

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the way SL accesses Nvidia cards, specifically high-memory Nvidias. I'm running a dual 2 GHz G5 with an Nvidia 6800 Ultra (256), one gigabyte of RAM, and like so many others, crash before even reaching the login screen...

Second Life's display options on Mac Nvidia cards have been crippled since 1.10, at least, disabling the avatar vertex program and related detail radio buttons. Meanwhile, a friend's G5 iMac continues to run fine - it's on an ATI GPU, 128 megabytes, I think.

SL 1.12.39(4), installed in Applications folder, working on this Powerbook :-

PowerBook G4 15" (PowerPC G4) , 1.67 GHz, 2 GB, ATI Mobility Radeon 9700: AGP, VRAM 128 MB, OS X 10.4.7

Although it frequently crashes when viewing an AV's profile inworld (all crash reports submitted to Lindens); sporadic failure to dematerialize after TP'ing (system freezing) and my Avs getting a bit p*ssed off as he frequently sinks waist high into the ground.

Otherwise it works but it's software that lacks a high degree of reliability and professionalism for a live production environment .

Cathal

haven't had a crash on start up problem on my underspec G4 (933mhz) or my G5 1.8Mhz, but the G4 is having a bad problem that I've fixed one of the problems on. It runs slow after awhile. with pmTool and Kernel_task take up to 70-80% of the CPU. When SL has been running for an hour or so SL takes up 80% of the processor and I have to quit, log out and log back in to restore everything.

The first problem causing this was running the latest version of Skype which I have been informed eats up processor time and went back to version 1.5, but the other problem is with SL eating up processor time and I hope it will be addressed in a new release.

Eddy

I was having the new SL client crashing on my PowerPC G5 (under OS X 10.4. within 5 seconds of startup, in my main account. But then I tried running it from a second account on my computer, and it ran perfectly, displaying the new splash screen and everything. Would someone else like to give this a try? i.e. Try running SL from an account other than the one in which you installed it. Create a new account for the purpose, if necessary. And please let us know what happens!

P.S. I'm referring to OS X user accounts here, not SL alternate accounts.

Rachel, I was intrigued by this option you mentioned and went to try it only to realize I never get to the log in option. Everyone I am hearing about crashing is crashing at application startup, they never get that chance to use an alt.

Are you having a different experience?

I'm not referring to a second SL account, but to a second OS X user account. Create a second OS X user account and try running SL from that.