So many kinds of crashes, so few names ...

There seem to be so many different ways to unintentionally be gone from SL, but only a couple words we use to describe them. I get tired of explaining each time, why I went away, why I didn't respond to (or see) IMs or chat, and why it took so long to come back. We need a better lexicon for the plethora of situations.

So, let's coin a few terms, hey? Please chime in with your scenarios and suggest good names for them or better names for these.

1) Client crash - SL client crashes, leaves you on your desktop
2) Bluescreeen - (windows only, no doubt!) y'all know what this one is
3) Instant reboot - doncha love it?
4) Auto-powerdown - just heard of this one today: computer shuts itself off suddenly
5) Computer freezup - happens to me a lot: cursor doesn't even move; nothing to do but hit the power button
6) pink-map disconnect - SL world stops responding. I can't move, I can't get anyone's profile, and eventually minimap turns pink
7) announced disconnect - client tells me I'm disconnected and gives an inscrutible reason, such as "mangled data stream". I sure wish it wouldn't mangle the data stream so often!

In addition, there are the things that keep us from logging back in right away (other than simply RL):

Many of the cases above lead to the dreaded "timeout" where you purportedly can't login for 5 minutes ("Go to your room, young man/woman!" Why does this always make me feel guilty? (Folks on the forum say we can get around this by logging into a different sim, but beware, you might get sucked into a vortex by your own ghost!)

And there's the famous "Region is restarting" message we often get when trying to log back in, which is rarely telling the truth. I routinely ignore this message. Fortunately it doesn't cause much of a delay.

Anyone got any favorites to add? And for goodness sakes, some better terms?

I only use two terms:

- Crash
- Damn SL

I'm with Stormy. Unless you're trying to talk to Tech Support, nobody cares why you crashed.

I stick with the Luddite standard. "F**k this."

Which could be why so many people post in the forums that they can't stop teh crashing.

Maybe reinstalling a 20th time will finally help.

The fabulous "Double TP Disconnect": teleport, SL decides to immediately teleport you again. After a few minutes of staring at a black screen and barely changing progress bar there's a 99% chance of a disconnect.

You don't even mention the lies SL tells you when you try to relog, and the 'slow logout' that stops you getting back in.

<<edit>> Oh, you changed your post while I was writing mine. Guess you're aware of them too

8 - The "Macs don't crash" crash. (^_^)y

That still exists? I haven't had that happen for ages now.

The popular phrasing for that is "red-mapped" (depending on your network connection either you disconnected from the sim, or the sim crashed in which case you likely relog to a "The location is not available" pop-up).

I am constantly surprised at how many people emediately run to blaming the viewer for their crashes. From the hardware I have fun it one, including my 4 year old business laptop, I have never crashed as much as others seem to with "The Latest Hardware".

Here is the specs on my Compaq Evo N1000c, it crashes at 0.4 Frames a second.

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 Northwood Xeon (1794 MHz)
Memory: 1536 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (Build 2195)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: MOBILITY RADEON 7500 DDR x86/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 1.3.4276 Win2000 Release
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.15284 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 2/84929 (0.0%)

Nothing really special at all, frame rates at their highest are around 15FPS, but rarely does it ever crash, let alone crash multiple times in a day. Are most or these crashes people complain really the client? Or is there more to it that people prefer to overlook and just blame LL?

I call your 'pink map' Redmapping, as red is what I'm seeing at the time.

For me there is but one verb - to go crashy. As in:

"Sorry, I went crashy." or

"Oops, looks like Lear went crashy."

The client definitely crashes. It may be due to bugs in my graphics card or system DLLs, but the client is what's running when it crashes. I don't have these problems with any other software.

BTW, there's no "blame" in my post. Just behaviors, as I see 'em.

I think I'd hear that a lot, ... if I could hear anything after I went crashy!

When this happens, click the cancel button as quickly as possible and you will be where you wanted to be and still able to carry on. I use this trick all the time

Generally speaking:
I have used SL now on 5 differents computers over the last year, 3 laptops and 2 Desktops, all but two had NVIDIA cards, one had ATI and one had an Intel 955 GFX chip and never, no not once did I ever get a crash that meant I had to reboot, or that it rebooted or borked Windows in some way. I could always get back into SL by restarting the program (eventually after waiting for the SIM to release the login).
I must admit I am at a loss to know what others manage to do with their PCs.

Not everyones does, unfortunately most do, and it has become a pet peeve unfortunately. I am sorry if you thought it was directed at you.

It's not so much what they do with their computers as it's what they don't do.

I recently spent an hour trying to explain to a friend in SL that what he was doing was wrong when I told him to update his drivers..........he was going to his device manager in Windows, finding his video card and "updating" from there. I got the clue when he said that after the search it told him he was using the best driver for his device. Boy, am I sorry I ever told him to go there to begin with.......I only told him about it so he could get what type of video card he had.

1) "CTD" (crash to desktop) is the usual term for this. =)

6) I refer to as "the bloody map", just for viceral effect.

"HCF" (halt and catch fire - this is a very old computer term, see: http://www.compwisdom.com/topics/Halt-and-Catch-Fire ) a crash so bad it causes your computer to sieze up, burst into flame and never work again. I have, once, had this happen while using SL. (okay okay, I didn't SEE the fire, but I saw the stinky smoke, that's close enough. It wouldn't be right to blame LL for a problem with my power supply... even if it took my CPU with it. Fortunately both were covered by warrantee)

Yup, I'm old enough to remember HCF ... and also back when ONP (turn power on) was actually funny rather than mere fact.

You probably know about the smoke too. It's the magic stuff that makes everything work. Once you let the smoke out, it never works again!

Indeed indeed. Can't put that magic smoke back in once it comes out.

Glad it works for you, when I've tried it I've usually ended up 'grey-screened': frozen, greyscale image and the "You might be able to IM" lie^H^H^H message. Admittedly the double-TP is much rarer these days.

Magic smoke and HCF errors? You'll be talking about friodes next The closest thing I ever had to a HCF was a ZX81 heatsink that got so hot it warped the bottom of the case. Famously the Xbox 360 had similar or worse problems in its early incarnations, so it just goes to show that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I am new to this game (almost 3 weeks now) and have been having difficulty logging in. I keep getting the error, "Login Failed. The system is logging you out right now. Your account will not be available till...." I subitted a ticked the first day it happened but have yet to hear a response so I am seeking help. If anyone knows how to fix this, could you please reply? Thank you.

I thought that was " Smash this."