It Keeps Crashing!!

Really, everytime I open second life, it crashes on me. I've updated to the new version and still!!!

It used to just happen when I tried to change my appearance. I accidently got rid of my hair and I wanted it back, when I tried to get it back, BLAM, it crashed on me.

Help!! I don't know what's going on.
My computer runs Unreal tournament 2004 just fine. No problems. But it won't run this.

Thanks for your imput.

Kellylee

Perhaps there should be a sticky explaining the need for providing system specs when reporting problems and several methods of finding system specs.

In order for people to efficiently offer relevant suggestions as to possible causes for and solutions to a report of problems, they need to have information about the computer hardware and software the problem is happening on.

This includes (but is not limited to)

1. what version of Second Life
2. what operating system, including what service pack
3. the brand and model of computer
4. if it's a homebrew computer that doesn't have a particular brand and model number, then the type of motherboard
5. amount of ram
6. brand and model of video card or onboard graphics processor
7. amount of video ram
8. version of video driver
9. number of monitors
10. SLI? Crossfire?

If you can run the Second Life program at all, the Help / About Second Life menu option gives some of the above, in a form you can highlight, copy, and paste here.

The system requirements for Second Life are listed at http://secondlife.com/support/sysreqs.php

In Windows XP,
you can find system information with the Accessories / System Information tool. It's Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Info .

In windows xp, you can do Start, Help , search for "system specs" and get relevant links.



There's a website at www.belarc.com that has a system information utility.

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest has a test for Second Life compatability.

In windows xp, dxdiag will give you system information.

In windows xp, msinfo32 will give you system information

For Windows, there's are free programs that provide system info:
such as:

WinAudit.at http://pxserver.com/WinAudit.htm

HWiNFO32 at http://www.hwinfo.com/

This link -

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

- will tell you whether your system is able to run Second Life. Just select Second Life from the dropdown menu and click the button.

You might have to downgrade a bit to an older viewer, and then maybe try the Nicholaz patched viewer. The link to his Eye Candy-f viewer (perfectly safe and used by thousands of residents) is:

http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/2008/05/release-eye-candy-ec-f.html

At the bottom of that page is a direct download link to the older 1.19.1.4 viewer that you need to run the Eye Candy patches.

If you can get inworld, try lowering your graphics settings (under Preferences > Graphics) to mid, or even to low. Reducing draw distance is a good way of speeding things up: the less things around you that your graphics card has to render, the faster things will run and you might even crash less, too).

ETA: I forgot, you can edit your graphics preferences without even logging in, as long as you can get the login screen to load. Just go into the edit menu at the top to do it.

Yeah, It's my graphics card.

Which is really odd because I can run Unreal Tournament 2004 just fine.
And it has better graphics than Second life.
I've tried turning the graphics down, it still crashes.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1520.
Thanks for all your imput.

Kellylee.

This is something that should be included in the Stickies.

There's a BIG difference between running UT2k4 and SL.

UT2k4 (and other games) has ALL of its graphics & files stored on your hard drive.

Second Life stores NONE of it. It all has to stream in. Which is also partly the cause of lag.

Try going into Preferences & turning down the amount of bandwidth you allow SL. I had a similar problem early on & by knocking it down a few notches, it ceased to crash. Lower the draw distance to about 200-256 and see how it works too.

What is the graphics card?

There are reports of fixes for varioius crash problems but what to suggest depends on knowing things like what video card or onboard processor is involved.

Just checked Dell. She has one of following:

Video controller

Intel 965 GM

Video memory

dynamic based on system memory capacity

Video controller

nVIDIA GeForce 8400M G or nVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

Video memory

128 MB (GeForce 8400M G) or 256 MB (GeForce 8600M GT)


If it's the Intel 965GM, there's the problem. My old laptop could run UT2k4 just swell, but choked on SL.

It's possible the "turn off Object Occlusion in settings.xml" trick might be of value:
http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2007/11/29/there-is-a-hack-for-second-life-and-the-intel-965-chipset/

my problem is weird

lately i can barely get a teleport to work at all.

i try to teleport the screen comes up with bar moving from left to right gets halfway then a popup telling me it couldnt connect and ive been disconnected i can continue to read IM's or quit.

So i relog 2 or 3 times if i relog immediately it says region is rebooting then try again says i cant log into account until xxx time, then i relog and i get in just fine.

all is well then some places I tp just fine others bar gets about halfway then same popup.

this is soooo annoying. half the time I cant tp anywhere unless i try, relog, try, relog, a few times.

ive cleared cache, changed settings back and forth, reinstalled, same problems.

I have the intel 965 chipset, and from what I understand, it is a common one. Does the fact that it doesn't work well in SL mean that I am just stuck? Or will there eventually most likely be a fix? This is a brand new computer, So I will be unable to get anything else for a while.

I am so dissappointed, surely there is a way around this?

Cito - an emergency workaround to not being able to teleport somewhere is to login to that location (you need to know the region name and coords beforehand - ie Barcola/239/61/21 - you can always IM someone who's there and ask, or write it down). Then change your preferences to "show start location on login screen" (General tab). Then before logging in, change start location to "<type region name>" and type in the region/x/y/z and you'll login there. Messy, and doesn't address your specific issues, but, it works in a pinch !!

Cito's problem is different enough from the OP's problem to merit a different thread.

If one is in SL , with TP problems, you can pull up the map, find where you want to go, click the copy SLURL button, exit SL, and put the SLURL into a browser address bar, or in XP, do Start Run , paste the SLURL, enter.

A general thing to do with TP problems is to restart the entire system, router, modem, computer, etc. If you aren't in the mood to restart the computer just do the router, modem, etc.

I figured my problem out but was kinda weird.

here's what it was just for future sake i guess.

my isp's dns servers were up but the problem was it was having problems resolving certain blocks of ip's according to their level 2 technician.

so most stuff had been cached like logging into SL but when id try to TP and it would come up on the tp screen attempting region handshake, it couldnt resolve the ip or hostname so it timed out. giving me the error.

The isp gave me a setup of alternate dns servers to plug in manually and now all is fixed.

so problem solved. so if any have similar issue in future this may be something to look at.


sorry I guess I should have started new thread, being a newbie here (10 days old) i wasnt sure and didnt want to spam or whatnot, thought id just tack onto "problem" thread hehe.

anyhow alls well

Trying to get my ISP to do something intelligent like fix a DNS problem is something I've dreaded for years.

Welcome to SL.

I tried lowering the amount of bandwidth. And it still crashed, took a while longer to crash, but still did. Maybe I need to turn it down all the way?

And the funny thing is, I was using SL for a while before It started crashing. Just randomly out of the blue one time when I was changing my appearance.

Are you still wearing the same hair that seemed to cause a crash when you put it back on after accidentally removing it?

I couldn't put the hair back on. So now I'm a bald chick... Not very nice...

It crashes before I get the chance.