Lost your Voice?

An interesting tip from the Firestorm people..

For those who find when they login, that voice will not work for them and subsequently have to relog multiple times:

Firestorm suggests disabling voice by going to settings <CTRL+P > <sound and media> <voice> and unticking Voice, as the last thing you do (when voice has been working) before you logout.

When you login, wait until you are rezzed, then do the same process again in reverse, this time enabling voice. Voice should then work.

So.. Does it work, because if so, in theory, it should work on all viewers?

Please comment below (anonymously if you wish) and tell us if this is a successful workaround (or not).

Frame Rate Drops KB3193494

Issue: Frame rate drops to around 3FPS when any SL Viewer tries to regain focus after another Windows 10 application has been run in the the foreground or after the viewer has been minimized.

Microsoft update patch KB3193494 is again a cumulative patch which includes the OpenGL bug.

So if you previously removed KB3176938 and KB3189866 for this problem you will also need to block this update.

Details on how to block an update are included in the original story here

Sudden Frame Rate Drops (KB3176938)

Updated 14th September (notes at bottom)

Finding your frame rate inexplicably goes from whatever is normal to about 2 frames a second?

Well you can relax to an extent, there is nothing wrong with your settings and you are not being griefed.

But you are a Windows 10 Anniversary user, and you have the KB3176938 update and it installed around 1st September. This is the cause of your problems.

This is not simply a Second Life related problem, this issue is common to all OpenGL rendered applications, including D&D Online, Runescape, and Xplane, with emerging reports from the Minecraft community.

The problem occurs when any other application steals focus from your viewer such as a web browser or going to your desktop or minimizing the SL viewer.  The SL viewer then fails to regain foreground priority until your relog.   Sometimes it can take an hour for this problem to show itself, sometimes just a few minutes.

Linden Lab are aware of the issue, and their developers are actively pursuing a resolution for the problem.  However, at the time of writing this, the only workaround they can suggest is to consider uninstalling the hotfix patch from Microsoft.

If you cannot wait for a resolution to this, which now seems likely to be a further fix from Microsoft, and you are feeling brave, here is a guide to removing updates:  http://www.howtogeek.com/235474/how-to-roll-back-builds-and-uninstall-updates-on-windows-10/

There is also a thread to follow on the Microsoft site, specific to this issue.  Although it says it affects Firestorm, the Lab confirms it is all viewers with this update:  severe performance issues on Firestorm viewer

You can also follow the issue on the Firestorm Jira: http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-20034

There is now a LL JIRA for this issue.  https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-37795



extra note:
Please be aware that whilst the workaround of uninstalling KB3176938 does solve the framerate issue, if like me, you have always had Cortana disabled, the removal will of KB3176938 will  trigger it to become activated.

One of the 'features' of the Anniversary update was to remove the "off" switch for Cortana and once activated, it cannot be turned off again without hacking the registry.

14th September

If you removed KB3176938 alas the frame rate problem returns on the update KB3176938 released last night.  The patch is cumulative, meaning that it gives you all the updates to date.  If you are therefore missing KB3176938 because you removed it, it will be included in the patch from last night.

You can follow this direct link to the MS trouble-shooter which allows you to Show or Hide updates from your PC:   http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/2/2/F22D5FDB-59CD-4275-8C95-1BE17BF70B21/wushowhide.diagcab

You can run the troubleshooter and uninstall the patches as described here: http://www.howtogeek.com/235474/how-to-roll-back-builds-and-uninstall-updates-on-windows-10/

As previously explained, unrolling the updates will enable Cortana if you previously had it disabled, because a 'feature' of the Anniversary Update was to remove your ability to turn it off.

However by following this Registry Edit which I can confirm works as I have done it myself, will turn Cortana off in Windows 10 Anniversary.   Every caution should be taken when editing the registry.  Check and double check you have made any alterations correctly and back up your registry before meddling with it!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW1heCjMe3w

Firestorm: New Release

The eagerly anticipated update for the popular Third Party viewer, Firestorm is now available.

This is a significant release, bringing the viewer in-line with the latest code available from the Lab and includes numerous fixes and enhancements to Firestorm's previous versions.

The viewer now offers full support for Experience Keys, which means users will now see the full permissions request dialogue instead of the truncated version that non Experience Key viewers currently display.

London City was an early closed-beta tester of Linden Lab's Creator Tools, see our stories for more information about Experience keys:   London City Advanced Creator Tools     Creator Tools Portals and Creator Tools in Singularity

Firstorm also now fully supports Viewer-Managed Marketplace.

Visit the Firestorm Viewer page to download the updated product.

Firestorm films support video in London City

On Sunday evening, Jessica Lyon, project manager for Firestorm Viewer filmed this weeks,  'Tool Tip Tuesday' in London City. This weeks top tips centre around the use of the radar facility.

Over 8,000 people viewed last weeks tool tip video about Auto-Replace, so we hope that you will enjoy seeing yourself in an official support video for Firestorm and also check out the versatile features described in the tutorial.

Server Side Baking Blues?

Going from Phoenix to Singularity SSB?
For information about customising FIRESTORM see the Resources Tab above, 3rd story down

So you have made the leap from Phoenix to Firestorm?   Well done you!

If you haven't.... or you cannot get to grips with Firestorm despite my wonderful article in "Resources", then Singularity with SSB may well be the cure for what ails you!

Firestorm is very much like Phoenix when set to the Phoenix mode.  You can customise it even more closely with my settings, but it does still lack some functionality that was enjoyed in Phoenix.
Little things, but annoying things.. Keyword alerts not working in background, UUID not supported in Estate and Local access listing, bad highlighting in edit, strange editor for scripting, Radar needing to be clicked 3 times to make it alphabetical, inability to view/moderate group chat by who has spoken most recently, non proportional tab widths in chat etc etc.

Singularity is the closest viewer you will get to the old Phoenix viewer.  It is virtually identical and the only differences I have spotted are on the radar button, otherwise it seems the same, which is hardly surprising considering both viewers were forked from Snowglobe.

However, they both share the same bug, which is the inability to point their settings away from:
C:\users\yourname\appdata\roaming\secondlife and try as I might I cannot get phoenix to point to "phoenix" and singularity to point to "singularity" in the directory above, it seems that "secondlife" is hardcoded into the settings.

It doesn't matter too much, unless you use both viewers!   If you use both viewers, expect some strange results as one will corrupt the "per user" settings on the other, or you will find Singularity does all the logon stuff and the very instant you think you have arrived in-world, it quits to desktop.   Phoenix on the other hand will dump many of the tweaks you have added, like keyword alerts, auto-responses etc.

My advice is to use either Phoenix or Singularity and NEVER both on your system at a time.

If you are moving from Phoenix to Singularity (or want to give Singularity a thorough road test) here's how:

Remove the desktop shortcut.. You don't want to undo all your hard work by accidently launching Phoenix!

Since Phoenix is now defunct as it will not support SSB and Singularity supports Server Side Baking, my work around was to rename the directory to C:\users\yourname\appdata\roaming\secondlife-phoenix to mothball my old settings and chats (which I can copy across later).   Now on starting Singularity, I can be assured that only Singularity is using the directory C:\users\yourname\appdata\roaming\secondlife thus preserving my settings from corrupting.

If for any reason I find that Singularity is unworkable for me and I want to return to Phoenix from where I left off, I can safely delete C:\users\yourname\appdata\roaming\secondlife  and rename C:\users\yourname\appdata\roaming\secondlife-phoenix back to C:\users\yourname\appdata\roaming\secondlife

By following the steps in the Firestorm guide (See the Resources Tab at the top of this page), you can also copy across the old Phoenix fonts and make the viewer absolutely identical!

I am told that you can copy the language files from Phoenix too if English is not your native language.

Happy fiddling!

PS: If rezzing is slow and grey forever, go to the Network tab and uncheck "Use HTTP for Textures"