White Crashes

Is this just me, or is anyone else getting frequent crashes where the viewer window turns translucent white and even the Task Manager can't close the viewer down? Other programmes continue to work ok, but closing Windows in the normal way can't be done. The only way I can deal with it is by turning the computer's power off.

try going into processes and end the process there..that should do it..

ok forget that..i just saw what you said and jumped the gun lol..

can you post a screenshot of it?

yes..over this last week Ive had that...plus SL has been a lot more crashy for me too (and it hasnt been for ages)

I can't post a screenshot, unfortunately, but it's very easy to picture - the SL scene stays there but is covered by a translucent white sheet. That's not technically correct, of course, but that's exactly what it looks like.

I'm not used to crashing at all. It's happened in the past, of course, but not too often. This white crash is very frequent and, as Faithless said, it only started happening very recently - maybe with the server rollout (not the extra one the other day - the one a few days before that).

I have experienced this Phil, i'm finding that the viewer seems to be "busy" for moments on end and then continues eventually.

Yes me to and as Faithless said just in the last week.It's like my PC hangs and it has never done that before.

Haven't had this with SL but the translucent white sheet I get when programs aren't responding in vista..... or is it Windows 7 at work....damn my memory is shot! It could be both do it.

Just trying to piece together reports of problems from that vintage of server deploy, per /348/81/353854/1.html and recent jira issues. (I'm not having the problem, but then I hardly ever run the Windows viewer anymore. Oh: we are talking about the standard viewer, right, not Emerald nor Snowglobe?)

All the following is just wild grasping at straws:

1. More than the usual reports of problems with audio streaming. Assuming there is a real problem there, presumably it would only arise if at least the preference is set to allow streaming.

2. By any chance, is everybody having this problem in the UK?

3. Are they all running on ATI graphics cards?

I had that problem frequently with Snowglobe and some builds of Kirsten's S18 viewer. However I was able to kill them with Task Manager. That's the main reason I stopped using Snowglobe.

Snowglobe did this for me on both a PC (Nvidia GTX260) and a Mac (ATI HD2600). Well, not the white screen, the viewer on the Mac just froze up.

For reference, i'm seeing this in Emerald 1.23.5 (1101) with an Nvidia 8800 GTX

The 'white sheet' is what Windows does when a programme stops responding, is it? That accounts for that then - but not the crashes, of course. Mine is a Vista system with an nVidia 9500 GT card.

It happens with the standard viewer and with emerald.

I don't get the 'white sheet' effect but I do get extended lockups that seem like a crash but aren't: the SL viewer freezes for 1 minute or longer and then returns to normal. FWIW, I have an nvidia GT220, Win XP-Pro SP3, standard SL viewer and am based in the UK

I'm not having any problems of this nature, either in Emerald or the regular viewer. I'm in the UK and have an NVidia 8800 GS with 512 of VRAM.

Oh, and of course I'm on a Mac.

/me smiles sweetly

I'll try leaving it a couple of minutes to see if it recovers then.

I don't get the white sheet, but I am experiencing more and more of the lockups for a minute or so, followed by a crash of the viewer -- when running Emerald. When I run Snowglobe, I experience the lockups, but it recovers rather than crashing after a minute or so. I'm on Windows XP Pro with Nvidia 8800 GT. The lockup does not lock the entire PC, just the SL viewer.

I have started keeping task manager open on the performance tab to see if I notice any correlation between the lockup/crashes and cput/memory/paging, but so far I'm not noticing anything there.

I'm in another one right now. I'm waiting to see if it recovers.

ETA:
I think 7 or 8 minutes is sufficient, and it's not going to recover. I went through the normal routine and I noticed that it was using ~50% of the CPU time. I clicked to end the process (Task Manager) and its CPU time went to 0 and stayed there. It's memory useage didn't change. I tried ending the process a few more times but to no avail. I now have to pull the power plug on this computer to get rid of the (standard) viewer. It's no good opening another one because I did that earlier and it crashed in exactly the same way *very* quickly. All the other programmes continue to work fin - which is why I am able post this.

I'm not getting the white sheet, but yes, I am getting crashes that require me to restart my computer. It isn't the same as a lock-up, although I've gotten those too for the past two weeks or so. I use both the standard viewer and the RC.

heh. I decided to wait after clicking Shut Down, to see what happens. 90 seconds later the computer started to shut down. 2 minutes after that it actually completed it. It's not worth waiting all that time so I'll pull the plug each time.

Probably not related, but I have been getting a sudden black screen that prevents even pulling up the task manager. I have to do a hard shut down and then reboot to get rid of it. I turned off some of the sleep mode / power save options and this took care of it - so far.

That's not a particularly good thing for your operating system. Damaged and corrupted files are a common result or such shut downs. It also contributes to fragmented hard drives........which leads to slow responses to inputs (possibly even bringing up your task manager, ending processes, programs, etc).

Since your task manager does eventually come up it appears that it's the SL viewer that is crashing and not your computer system........which, as far as crashes are concerned, is a good thing (if crashes can ever be thought to be good ). I suppose you've already done the clear cache but maybe try deleting the cache folder manually. Do a good clean up of your hard drive.........something like CCleaner. There are registry cleaners out there (though I don't know any to recommend).........maybe see if there are "try before you buy" or free ones (is Download.com still around?). Have you tried turning off your anti virus/spyware? And I'd do a disk defrag too.

Hope you get it fixed soon...........would hate to think those guards are taking extended breaks now.

It hasn't happened to me ever. I almost never crash...

I was going to suggest trying Emerald, until I saw Lil's post.

... just remembered "Snow Crash"

download.com is still around. One of the first things I do when I have a problem that I can't get rid of it, I not only check in here but a do a search on it. Good luck on getting that taken care of. It isn't fun when you can't figure out what is going on.

I don't think I need to do those things. It seems that it's not just me and that it started very recently for those who also have it. I send the crash reports in so I'll grin and bear it for now.

Phil, it's pretty obvious it's a viewer crash (at least to me it is). But, I still caution against forcing a shut down by turning off your computer.........that does increase the chances of creating even more problems (system problems that a reinstallation of your operating system might be your only fix).