Tech support, LL and forum unhelpful...

I know I shouldn't be posting this here, but I'm running out of options, and idea.

At random intervals, my connection to SL drops. Sometimes it's minutes, sometimes it's hours, SL randomly stops responding and then soon tells me I've lose my connection. While this happens, my connection to the Internet is fine. Other progams, including SLVoice.exe, remain connected without issue.

Further mystery- sometimes I run two accounts side by side. One computer, two monitors, two accounts logged in. Half the time, only one of the two accounts gets disconnected, the other continues to run without an issue!

In attempts to fix this, I've tried different viewers, cleared cache, replaced my modem, replaced my router.

NOT wireless.

I've called my ISP to ask if they're aware of issues. They say no.

Check your video card? It's possible it's overheating on you..

But honestly don't be surprised about the no Support services and your request ignored by them.. It's normal

I would suggest checking your router for open ports that might conflict with the port SL requests to run the client. If it is a conflict you can reserve a single port for sl at the router and in the prefs section of the client. I have no idea if this is your actual problem, but it is a start of things to cross off the list at least. Hope it helps.

When you login or TP to a different region, do Help -> About SecondLife and get the sim host IP address. In a DOS window, do a ping -t to that IP address.

When your session gets shot, check to see if the ping is still happy. If it is, that rules out much networking as the problem. If it's not.. er.. post back here.

edit:

Uh.. Are they always logged into the same region? Does it only happen when you have 2 accounts logged in at once?

I have run two avatars at once, each on a separate computer, both connected by cable to my router. When one avatar logs into a sim where the other avatar is already logged in, one or the other is going to get a disconnect soon. Other symptoms are that one avatar cannot access land info, cannot access media, and sometimes can use group features like starting Group chat. I have no problem as long as the second avatar logs into a different sim than the first avatar, and then teleports in to the first avatar's sim.

For the problem with running two accounts at once it might be that you have a port conflict. You can set the port with a command line argument.

See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Client_parameters for command line arguments.

The gist of it is add --port 13001 to the shortcut used to start one of the accounts. Create a distinct shortcut for this account if you don't have separate shortcuts already. The default port number is 13000. If the two dashes in front of port don't work, try one dash. the -port 13001 goes in the target field, outside of the quotes, at the right, with a space in front of the dashes.

That would only solve that one problem, not any other problems that are happening.

Wow, there's the answer I couldn't get from tech support when I submitted a ticket with the problem to them. I'm going to try that.

This happens whether I run two accounts or not. This happens whether they're in the same region or not.
I've checked my ports up and down, and opened everything that SL needs.
Video card temp is nice and low.

Upon further research, I find myself wondering if anyone knows what the best MTU setting is for SecondLife?

Just so I can eliminate that, too.

Could it be your computer didn't like when (or possibly how) you divided the viewer into two?

I'm not very technically oriented. That is the best I've got.

It sounds like networking all right, but I doubt (as you do) that it has anything to do with MTU/fragmentation.

What is your actual available bandwidth for SL, and what do you have SL's network slider set to? (Test bandwidth at http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1)

Do you have any backup, update, scan or indexing services that SL could sometimes conflict with?

Could also be memory. How much memory does your box have, and have you checked utilization while SL is up?

I've got SL's slider maxed. I think that's 8000?
Speedtest- 18986 Kb downstream. 7980 Kb up.
Nothing to conflict, I shut them down.
RAM? 4 gigs. Never seems to use more than 75%


It SEEMS like my router, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what part. Ports are opened, which is why I considered MTU.

Incomprehensible. What video card(s) do you have? And, what is your typical frame rate with a single client up?

GeForce 9800 GT+, 1 Gig ram is the card.

Framerate is low 40's, usually.

Forget MTU, unless you've messed with it before and think you may have messed it up.

Did you try what SuezanneC suggested above?

I would, but this happens even when a single client is running, which rules out that they're conflicting with each other.

try cutting your bandwidth in the client down to something between 300 and 500

THis is a case where more is not necessarily better and can CAUSE LAG and crashes

btw I can run up to 6 avs at once without a flinch

When I'm not getting disconnected, I can easily run 6 too. I'll try lowering that, then.

It seems like each system/net connection combination has its own sweet spot for the bandwidth number. I have had to redo it for every new machine in the last 5 years.

What viewers have you used?

What kind of router is it?

There was a thread not too long ago about something like periodic disconnects in which the problem may have been some kind oddball firewall or filtering system built in to the router. I recall Argent and I posted in that thread.

Standard viewer, Emerald, Meerkat, Imprudence, and a couple others.

Belkin N. Model F5D8236.

Don't suppose you can remember more details?

What happens when you run ONLY SecondLife (i.e. No browser, Ventrillo, Skype or other stuff that will pull bandwidth)? Don't forget that SL is a major hog, even when you only have one version running. I run cable internet and have to amplify the signal after the split with the television, otherwise I crash regularly.

I recently upped my network slider from 500 to 800, and got an improvement. Above that, no change, until I got near the actual available bandwidth, at which point there was degradation.

What is *sounds* most like is that some traffic monitoring box decides a given SL connection is a stream that should be throttled, and does so. Below 300kbps or so the server connection will drop. It is not unheard of that an ISP handles bittorrent etc. that way - ComCast springs to mind. I'm not saying it is likely - just observing that it would fit the symptoms.

Well, to test, I took my router out of the loop. This isn't permanant, I need a router, but it seems to have cleared the issue up for now...

So it's gotta be ports or MAYBE MTU in the router?

Here's a link to a review of the router on Newegg that says it has problems with SL:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16833314042#review-2

Problems reported at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21604825-Help-Ok-F5D82364v1-Disconnecting

Possibly there's a firmware update.

Thanks for finding those for me. On a side note, I turned SL's bandwith down from 8k to 4k. It seems to have made a difference so far. I'll also check for a firmware update though.