Issue: Staying connected

For the last two days, I've had a serious problem staying connected to Second Life. I cannot seem to nail down what the problem is, but the symptoms are consistant -- connection seems very lossy and within two minutes, I'm at 0 Bkps and though the client remains responsive, there is no reaction from the server. So I reboot and try again.... until I get frustrated and stop.

Is anyone else having this problem? And if so, what did you find it to be/how did you correct it?

Many thanks for any and all assistance.

Update:

For the last three days, I seem unable to maintain a connection to Second life for more than 30 minutes at the time. Consistantly, network traffic drops to zero and I find myself 'stuck' and unable to move, chat halts, and I wind up having to relog.

I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out what it is...

I've put up 'keep alive' software thinking maybe my ISP is timing out my connection. But it isn't.

I've verified current versions of all drivers.

I've shut down virus scanning.

I've checked and re-checked my firewall and it is working fine.

It doesn't seem confined to any one location in the SL world. I get the same thing if I'm at a club as when I'm in an area with no one else around.

Has anyone else had this problem, or does anyone have any ideas about why it might be happening?

Thank you in advance for any insight or help you can offer. This is BEYOND frustrating.

Are you running any internet security or firewall software? Virtually everyone I've spoken to this week that gets disconnected 3-5 minutes after login has Norton Internet Security installed...

No Norton here. I do have ZoneAlarm installed (as of tonight), but this has been happening for the last few days.

I'm going to try again and this time, check the status screen in-game to see if that tells me anything. (Read somewhere that Alt+1 brings it up).

Ok. Something is really wrong. This time, I logged in and my money was gone, it says I have no land (incorrect!), and my clothes are all missing (both on me and in inventory).

I'm afraid to try again... =/

Update:

It is definitely a connectivity issue, I just can't figure out which end. Used ALT+1 to monitor things and after the first five minutes of being in-world, the bandwidth meter just goes insane with fluctuations, until it eventually drops me.

Still chugging on this, and still having major issues. I've tested and re-tested my DSL connection and it consistantly returns results in the expected ranges. However, I spend five minutes in SL and bandwidth drops to practically nil and eventually, drops me all together.

There has got to be a solution. I just can't find it. I have noticed that once I do drop like this, the only way to get even remotely back to 'normal' (i.e., 30 minutes before the drop instead of 3) is to reboot.

Please... any ideas? No A/V running, firewall is open on all ports, all current drivers, etc, etc, etc.

I have the same problem with my SL also. I will be in game and all of a sudden I drop the connection. Have had DSL lines checked....all running fine and seeems no problem. This can happen sporadically or not happen at all one day and then happen several times a day. I will lose connection....get sort of stuck with my avie not being able to move and then boom, my connection will come back but it might have been too long not to pick up where I was, and then I have to reboot. Very frustrating. I also see, only when I am on SL, that my MSN and Yahoo seem to drop too. Never happens when I am off SL. Very strange....

Cienna, you don't happen to have a wireless network, do you? Either way, what is your packet loss like when it happens? What's it like normally? And the cumulative total? (Help > About Second Life)

The overwhelming majority of residents I've spoken to in Second Life that disconnect consistently after a certain period of time, have firewall software running. Pretty much every last one had their problems disappear when they totally stopped using the firewall.

In some cases (Norton in particular), this may require uninstalling it.

Please, try completely shutting down your firewall. Close it if there's any way to, uninstall it for a moment if you have to. Second Life's network traffic patterns (huge transfers on multiple network ports) drive firewall software bonkers, and most of these programs cut SL off when they've had enough. We currently don't detect the blockage, leading to inworld problems such as no terrain or objects, the map turning red, no L$ balance appearing, turning invisible, etc.

Hi Lee, I'll try that, but upon closer investigation, I think there might be a memory leak in your teleportation code. I have noticed over the last two days that the problem seems exclusively to happen within minutes of teleporting and this includes the use of any teleportation scripts (e.g., up and down stairs in a house or shop).

Thought I'd mention it because it is consistant enough to be suspicious.

Here's a screenshot of the problem 'in action'... just teleported into a sim and wham:

And Lee, if you're still reading (I hope!), here's a better look at it... also after teleportation:

(Hmm. That's interesting. It put me through uploading all the screenshots, but they are not here.) Will post in a reply.

Here are the screenies (I hope). You'll see the progression to being dropped... the last shot is just before it bottomed out.

That looks like the gradual logout caused by a partial disconnection to Second Life. We're not always very good yet at figuring out that you're connected to some servers (IM, Find, etc.) and not others (like the region you're actually in).

I can have teleports looked into (we've dramatically improved handoffs in 1.6), but I'm curious, since the "teleport" that an object with llSitTarget does isn't a real teleport. If you do have internet security software installed, I'd still hedge my bets on that being the prime suspect.

Frankly, I have seen some improvement with shutting down the firewall... but this is still happening (albeit over longer periods of time now) and it is still happening after porting into sims.