Slow Texture loading in recent viewers (1.21 and later)

This forum thread is for continued discussion about effects and continued experiences with slow Texture loading in recent viewers. This is a bug originally reported and tracked here in the Issue Tracker:

LINK:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8503
BUG DESCRIPTION:
"Textures are loading so incredibly molasses slow that it's seriously detrimental to the SL experience."

However, that Issue is for an active investigation of details that can lead to a fix, so please limit the above to ONLY those comments.

Other comments, experiences, off-topic debates about that Bug should continue in this thread.

Recent comments moved from the Issue comments:

Additional comments moved from the Issue comments:

Yeesh.. I really find it hard to read JIRAs that start with all the rude comments.

Anyway, I haven't noticed that textures are slow lately. 7800GT with 178 drivers, 2GB, XP SP2.

Is it time to start asking people who have this problem where they are in the RL world? Last year, there were problems for weeks with disconnects and failed TPs that turned out to be some router in Sweeden had flipped out.. Or maybe ISPs throttling?

I noticed texture loading slowing down substantially after a recent security fix, and it's been improving since.

It was my understanding that this fix involved switching to CAPS based texture loading (using HTTP?). Could you elaborate on just how wrong I am?

The thread on this side-discussion in comments has been moved here:

i observed this:

i go to my own shop every day, my disc cache is set to 750 mb, but still the client bandwidth goes to the max each time i go there and seems to download it again completely each day.
this could be the reason why it´s so slow, also the reason why the asset servers are so slow... (waste of bandwidth for useless downloads)

sometimes it takes 1 minute to rez a sculpty (32x32) wich is rediculous.

i have a 16 mbit connection

I go to a club. I tick off a number of folks by moving and bumping them before I can see them. I try to tip the DJ and clubowner some cash but I can't see the tipjars. Can't see what the contest is because the boards haven't rezzed yet. After 5 minutes, give up.

I tp to a business to find some nicer clothes. I sit and wait for textures to rez. Eventually I get maybe a third of them. Lagspike freezes my computer for over a minute for some reason. Get forcibly logged out of SL.

Then I watch a movie in RL and wonder why I bother with this...

I love SL, in spite of my venom over recent bad decisions by LL. But if you can't see why the texture/cache/bandwidth hogging is a showstopper, then you need to create an alt and play the blasted thing.

perhaps I misread what Ramzi wrote back on Jira, but I think those last two posts are actually the type of thing for Jira and not the other way around...

FINALLY DECIDED TO SPEAK UP ON THIS
I've been watching the above cited JIRA with interest... and have been shaking my head, both at Linden Lab response to valid complaints, and at the abusive activities of one user in particular, GORDON WENDT, that turned a reasonably interesting thread into a pure flamer zone.

I have held my tongue so far because months ago I was banned from JIRA for posting that very JIRA-- one that has proved to be a virtual expose of one of the most damaging problems to hit SL in its five years of operation-- and taking to task Linden Lab employees who downplayed that problem despite massive amounts of evidence.

Because of such activities and attitude on the part of Linden Lab, I seriouisly doubt any posts here on these forums are going to be of actual value. Nevertheless, I am going to stand up for a few people who also believed in telling things like they see it-- despite self-serving company guidelines that fail to address the needs of the users. Those people like me, were banned from JIRA for simply stating their opinions (as well as reacting to a particularly abusive user)... without warning, and in truth without viable appeals process in place.

THE BUG REPORTING ISSUE
Edward Griffith put it quite well: there is more to bug reporting than listing
technical data and doing Linden Lab's research for it. There are SOCIAL and EXPERIENCE implications of bugs that can be far more devastating than any technical bug conceived. The entire grid can go offline, and if Linden Lab is forthcoming, friendly and gets on it, people will be pretty much forgiving. They're not so forgiving when a 15 minute shopping experience turns into two hours due to slow texture loading. Because of such issues, reportedly Linden Lab has lost some 13 million users to date. They didn't leave because Linden Lab was a friendly company and Second Life was a stable, enjoyable experience. And unlike us... the vast majority of them probably never said a word. They just left.

Part of "bug" reporting is providing feedback to Linden Lab not only of the bug itself... but information on how such is affecting the community. Saying, "Textures are loading very slowly" (which apparently is what LL wants) is nowhere near the reality of saying, "Textures are loading so slowly I am regularly losing customers from my market. I'm very angry about this."

There is far more to realistic "bug reporting" than "just the facts, ma'am." If Linden Lab doesn't have the thick skin to handle a customer being honest about his experience in an ENTERTAINMENT venue... they're in the wrong business.

WE'RE NOT YOUR HIRED RESEARCHERS
The average customer should not be expected by a professional company to do it's bug hunting and statistical analysis work for it. That's the job of Linden Lab. The right and privilege of the customer is to report the bug and their experience of it-- period. It then is Linden Lab's job to track it down and fix it.

That job does not include reporting a bug as "not reproducable" (when obviously the employee has not even tried to reproduce it) or "more information needed" when people have already provided pretty much all the data and information a CUSTOMER should be expected to provide.

When a customer brings a car into a mechanic and says "There's a strange noise under the hood"... he's not expected to produce recorded audio, times of day it happens, or statistical sheets. It's the job of the mechanic to determine what it is the customer is complaining about-- and fix it. The mechanic doesn't take it personally... and if he doesn't fix it... he has every reason to believe he's going to have the car returned by an angry customer. Live with it people. That's life. The customer is paying for the service; he expects it to work and when it doesnt-- he's likely not to be in the best of moods for being forced to continually deal with such issues.

As a (now retired, thank goodness) professional coder and corporate systems analyst I will state this clearly: imo Linden Labs bug fixing system is neither professional nor user-friendly. It is an insult to its customers and is overly demanding. It is totally non-responsive to the customer who says simply, "This isn't doing what it's supposed to" without the technical know-how to hold Linden Lab's hand in showing them how to reproduce an erratic problem.

DRAGGING THE THREAD TO A FLAMING STATUS
I was honestly outraged to see Gordon Wendt, after months of such abuse, still enforcing his personal "Jira police" opinions upon this system. Gordon Wendt has a history of abusing the JIRA system and other users by imposing his personal opinions on the JIRA posts of others. His typical methodology is exactly what we witnessed in the above JIRA post... changing the priority of the item and then continuing to insist on his point of view in the matter no matter how many people disagree with him. Then he claims factuality in "following the rules" and innocence of harmful intent (note Gordon: the rules may or may not be there-- who appointed YOU to enforce them?).

In truth, his actions are tyranical, abusive of the JIRA and repetitive. He appears to consider himself some self-appointed "JIRA police" whose duty it is to proscribe Linden Lab's judgement for them based on his personal interpretation of JIRA guidelines-- and as witnessed in that JIRA he will do so repeatedly by changing the status of a report over and over and over again despite all protests.

I have abuse reported him more than once for such activities and I applaud anyone who had the courage to stand up and do the same. All this guy does is drag JIRAs down into troll activities. Gordon is NOT an official JIRA moderator, is not a Linden Lab employee (at least, not to my knowledge), and unless he's bucking for a job, has no buiness taking on the role of constantly editing the JIRA posts of other users. Such abuse on his part is visible throughout the JIRA system. The fact that he continues such abuse over months of time indicates to me that JIRA's moderative activities are seriously one-sided and deficient.

If Linden Lab wants to alter the status of a post-- they can do so. Even then, far too often we see Linden Lab employees "resolving" JIRA posts for obviously unfactual and "work saving" reasons. That is a fact (I can surely provide numerous instances of such if anyone cares to challenge that statement).

BANNING FROM JIRA--SELF SERVING POLICIES
Linden Lab's recent policy/habit of banning people from JIRA without warning and without explanation is about as poor an attitude as I have seen come out of any company. Further, the supposed "appeals" process is apparently bogus. A 9-page, certified-mail appeals letter brought not so much as even a reply from that company, much less a valid and proper appeals process. IMO it's fairly apparent that LL's "moderation" and "appeals" process is designed solely to serve LL-- not its customers.

Bottom line opinion: The JIRA system is a cumbersome, unwieldy, employee-and-user-abused system that by no means effectively handles bug reporting. Bugs are not being corrected within a reasonable period of time (what is it about texture transfer protocol that has required over FIVE MONTHS to correct?). Prioritization of bug fixes is highly questionable and employee attitude while handing such is not done according to the protocol to which I am acqauinted when dealing with professional computer-based companies. Again, that's my opinion. Others may disagree but I know this: If I were the owner of a company, my programmers better flat well be good enough to update a transfer protocol faster than witnessed here.

REPETITIVE STATEMENTS FROM DAN LINDEN
I have only this to say: I've been listening to the SAME claims coming from Linden Lab for YEARS. Dan's recent statements about not being "convinced the switch to HTTP" will fix the problems is both one of those "duh" things (of COURSE it won't; you folks have a major DOS attack going on behind the scenes)... and misleading to the actual issue going on-- the Linden Lab tech department failing-- over YEARS of online performance-- to fix one of the most basic concepts to the performance of a 3D immersive VR world-- timely transfer of textures.

This continual demand from the Lindens for "more information" and for users to post their experiences etc etc ad nauseum... to this I have one reply: how much more information does the company need than that already posted in that JIRA? Business/professional opinion: TEXTURES ARE BORKED. FIX THEM. END OF STORY.

BEING CUSTOMERS DOESN'T MEAN WE'RE AMATEURS
In case anyone thinks that's a flame at Linden Lab, it's not. Some of us out here are actually professionals of our own right. I have worked in human resources, been the President of a Corporation, and know how the environment works. If I were head of systems operation and in charge of making Second Life functional and solid, the above is exactly what I'd be telling my staff after this much time had passed... in exactly those words. "What is wrong with you guys that you can't fix a texture protocol and transfer algorythm? Did I misunderstand your qualifications for this job? You've got 30 days to get a handle on this or paychecks are going to be reconsidered."

This is the business world people. There's no room for excuses here. People either do their jobs and they do them efficiently, or apparently they're not qualified for such positions. I don't see World of Warhammer programmers making excuses to their bosses and customers. I don't see such coming from Quake or Unreal or Guild Wars. Do their textures bork like this? Do they have a delay of service attack hitting their own servers?

WE'RE NOT BEING TREATED HONESTLY
I'm not a troll or a flamer. I'm a businessman whose group is paying Linden Lab some $14,500 a year for a platform that so shakey it daily crashes our group members-- several times a day-- no matter the quality of their computer (mine is quad-core, 4 gigs RAM, terrabyte HD and Nvidia 9800 GTX graphics card on a 6.5mb high-speed cable access. Anyone care to tell me it's my computer?). SL has done this for YEARS now... and we find out that one of the major problems-- a faulty texture transfer protocol-- has been known and UNFIXED by Linden Lab far before I filed the orignal JIRA last August. So as a BUSINESSMAN I am saying: we're paying for a service here. That service is not functioning. I want it fixed and I want to stop hearing excuses and claims and yet MORE demands for freebie user-provided data. You people do your OWN research, YOU ferret out the problems, and you discover the solutions. After five months of this Dan Linden is still feeding us the same line-- and we are understandably tired of it. Thus the numerous angry posts on that JIRA (which posts I do have stored to archival historical records, BTW-- and my nod of approval to Ramzi for archiving them here as well... although in earnest I think posting them in order of appearance would have been a more valid archival presentation).

We're paying Linden Lab, not the other way around. If Linden Lab can't provide the service we pay for, if their programmers are not up to the task, then it's time for us to reconsider our $14,500 a year investment (as we are doing, to be frank).

If that's too direct or too factual or too "non-pc" for Corporate to deal with-- if Linden Lab believes users have to be BANNED for making such statements-- then I think someone seriously needs a business-world reality check. Competition is coming and indeed is already here-- and Linden Lab is either going to get its act together-- or it's going to lose out. I would encourage anyone who doesn't believe that to get his head out of the flippin' sand.

That whole JIRA post, all the information and photos and data that have been posted there, the 200+ votes, the numerous people watching that post, all comes down to these things: Textures are not working, they have not been working since the inception of SL, they're getting WORSE with each user that joins SL... and we want it fixed... not in another five months of excuses... but NOW.

Frankly, I think customers have waited long enough, don't you folks? We're not being unreasonable. We gave you over 5 months to fix a texture transfer protocol and DOS attack. Your customers are sending you the message, whether you like hearing it or not: we think that's ruddy well long enough.

I was too lazy to type my info, so this is what I copied and pasted from "Help".
Second Life 1.22.5 (107013) Dec 31 2008 13:30:40 (Second Life Release Candidate)
CPU: AMD (Unknown model) (3100 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 9500 GT/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!
OpenGL Version: 2.1.2


I have my graphics settings on low when I'm not at home. I have 6000 DSL - and when I TP somewhere, I have to wait for ages for textures to rez.

I have noticed that when I am at a store (usually the ones with lots of textures on cubes on display...) if I left click holding down my "Alt" key it sems to speed up the process of the loading. I have experimented by just standing there for five minutes surrounded by grey boxes, and then another time "Alt"-clicking them to see if it really is faster, or if it just seems to be because I have something to do while waiting for the textures to rez: It really IS faster. It's just very tedious and only do-able in places with less than 50 items on display *sarcasm*

I wholeheartedly agree with the above poster about the trollish activities of Gordon Wendt. It is not his job to decree that people who are experiencing "Showstopper"-level of bugs only experienced "Critical"-level problems, just on his say-so. Obviously, he's not experiencing the problem as bad as others, but it is not his prerogative to denigrate the problems other people have with Second Life, just because he can't reproduce the problem himself.

I feel that at least a temporary ban from posting in the JIRA is justified for Gordon Wendt, until such time he decides to stop imposing his will over other people, and nay-saying their responses to his irresponsible actions.

BTW note to Ramzi, and no disrepect intended: in that JIRA post may I recommend you place that big yellow LL warning box at the end of the original post instead of smack in the middle of it (thereby disrupting the flow of thought). I think it would serve the purpose better. Thanks. : )

You say that, and say that in the JIRA, but you're still criminally rude and, with all disrespect intended, being a whiny little bitch.

Either learn what the words mean or stop saying them.

edit: no texture loading problems here..

Second Life 1.22.5 (107013) Dec 31 2008 13:30:40 (Second Life Release Candidate)

You are at ....agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.27.76:13001)
Second Life Server 1.24.10.106829

CPU: AMD (Unknown model) (2611 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 7800 GT/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!
OpenGL Version: 2.1.2

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.16.4 OpenSSL/0.9.7c zlib/1.2.3
J2C Decoder Version: KDU
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.21027 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 40/278604 (0.0%)

I have a Texture and Color Controller HUD I use to change the textures on my builds. It can load sets of textures displayed on texture buttons on the HUD for different parts of the build - such as floor tiles, roofs, inside walls, outside walls, brickwork and so on.

Each texture set can have up to 30 textures that are displayed on texture buttons - you click the button, the texture changes on the build. The HUD reads a notecard specific to each texture set to get a texture's UUID. All the textures in these sets are 256x256 24bit.

What I notice, and this is persistent, is that when the HUD is first worn and loads the default texture set, the textures are downloaded. When I switch to a different texture set, those textures are downloaded as well, that's normal. If I switch between textures sets of already downloaded textures, they are displayed on the HUD texture buttons correctly and are NOT downloaded a second time ~ONLY~ if it has been LESS than 30 SECONDS since the last time those textures in a set were displayed. Once 30 seconds has passed, the textures in a set are downloaded again.

This happens repeatedly, at 3000m with nothing around pointed straight up to the sky.

It is a texture cache TTL problem and probably other things.

If I have this right, the HTTP implementation that FJ's been talking about having up soon does *not* include using HTTP to move textures to the viewer.

As I just explained to Ramzi in more detail privately I just wanted to note here that I will not be participating in this discussion as I feel that being unduly attacked for taking an unpopular view has become acceptable and I will not be a part of that.

Sindy, perhaps you don't understand (or don't care) as to what is acceptable and not acceptable posts on these forums... but there is a vast difference between a customer stating factual complaints against Linden Lab activities (no matter how frank such statements are)... and a flaming troll post such as yours. Abuse reported.

Did you even read that post to discern why it was written? If all you can contribute is attacking other users while blatantly ignoring pertinent data, please spare us the drama. History tends to eventually show up such posts for what they are.

Grayness has greatly reduced my enjoyment of SL for years now. I was just seeing grayness pictures I posted on photobucket and snapzilla back in 2005.

There has been some change over the years; with the addition of sculpties, I now get gray spheres in addition to gray explosions, buildings, etc.

In aggravation I sent so many pictures illustrating my lousy gray SL experience to Snapzilla that I started getting complaints from people so I stopped sending them, but the grayness never stopped.

The new grayness is old hat to me.

You were not unduly attacked. You deserved it. You should have left the priority alone. You had no interest in the JIRA other then changing the priority to what you thought it should be.

And it's interesting to note that Ramzi left it at "Showstopper" despite your persistent on changing it to what you wanted.

I think you need to spend more time in SL then policing the JIRA system. Maybe then you will experience what the JIRA was all about.

Back at you for naming names and personally attacking Gordon...

The difference Sindy, is that I didn't personally attack Gordon. I exposed abusive activities factually and clearly... after he'd turned an entire JIRA thread into a flame war. It wasn't the first time such has happend.

That said, I've had a couple of private conversations with him since then and find him (outside of the JIRA) to be quite reasonable and respectful. I believe he thought he was doing the right thing... but put his foot in it in the process and derailed the thread. Since it wasn't the first time such had happened, was fairly annoying. Said he wouldn't repeat such again... which I have to commend and honor as a mature attitude.

Sorry that post offended you... but when other efforts fail and people still prove stubborn, the next step is to lay it on the line no sugar-coating. Considering the abusive nature of your own posts, your umbrage at me is fairly hypocritical and frankly-- have nothing to do with this issue.

From what Ramzi says Gordon's actions resulted in the banning of several users. So I don't think my post was out of line at all in exposing such activities for what they were: abusive to both the JIRA itself and to other users.

Again, Gordon has since stated he's changing his ways... that matter is settled (aside from the harm he brought upon others and personal enemies he earned as a result. All that is consquence of action). As for my opinion of his actions, wrong is wrong... but holding a grudge after an earnest change of attitude serves no purpose.

Slow textures? Try not being able to rez avatars beyond Ruth or cloud.

I have been following this JIRA for months and if nothing else... I'm glad there are others that recognize how crippling this issue is. It is awful that I can land on my platform ...wait 5 minutes for the textures to load...leave for no more than a few minutes and when I get back I have to wait another 5 minutes for the textures to reload. Vendors never fully rez for me...it is impossible to shop anymore and one of my favorite activities in SL...Sim exploring, is totally out now.

To add to this problem...the texture window along with opening a New Window, People Chooser, etc., take longer and longer to open, resulting in my being totally frozen for up to a minute or longer as time goes on. As much as I love being in SL ...this problem has made it almost impossible to fully enjoy the SL experience beyond being able to talk (in voice) to friends. And now there seems to be problems with that too and one has to frequently relog to talk to friends for any length of time.

And yes, I have added my votes to the JIRA's although like Wayfinder, I felt insulted and that I wasted my time adding to them by the lack of serious response to this issue.

I am now hopeful that this issue is being taken seriously ---->keeping fingers crossed.

Second Life 1.22.5 (107013) (Second Life Release Candidate)
CPU: Intel (Unknown model) (2900 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 9800 GT/PCI/SSE2/!
OpenGL Version: 2.1.2

For me textures load fairly quickly AFTER I right-click on them. If I don't right-click on them or rotate my avatar they almost never load. I can stand static after TPing someplace and wait endlessly for anything to load .. unless i rotate my avatar or right-click on something.