HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL FRIENDS, READERS, & FAMILY IN SECOND LIFE

even though *SWEETS* is down till sometime after the first of the year, we want to wish everybody a HAPPY HOLIDAYS FOR ALL OF YOU & A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

All My Love

SweetCheeks54 Timeless aka ღSweetღ
Owner of *SWEETS*

APOLOGIES

It seems thats there is a Grinch out there. All the pictures that I have posted on here since 2009 are now missing. I will try to get some of the pics back if I can if not will redo any article that I wrote and add the picture.
Sorry for the inconvience

SweetCheeks54 Timeless

CHECK OUT THESE MUSICANS AT GUTHRIES ON GIGLI LIVE SIM

There is a great venue that is totally acoustic here in SL. Dottie Iceburg is the owner of Guthries on Gigli Live. Musicians play completely live no backing tracks. Plenty of musicians in the morning and evening. Musicians start playing around 5am-6am slt. Here are some that frequent Guthries

PEET PETERMAN
Peet Peterman is a Musician from the Netherlands. He plays folk, country, blues, pop covers and originals in Dutch and English. Peet will tell you that his goal is the fun of playing music and when you like to listen to music you've found a treasure! You are sure to enjoy his wonderfully played acoustics on both Guitar and harp! Peet don't monkey around when it comes to being a great entertainer! Peet can be seen at Guthries Folk Club on a regular basis


BARTELBY PEGLER
Bart was born into a musical family and was encouraged at a very early age to study music, he played trumpet and tuba for over 18 years. His Mom wanted him to learn piano but he would rather play baseball. Five years ago Bart turned off his TV and began learning Banjo and Guitar. He kept disappearing from SL and friends to sneak off and go practice guitar, soon his friends began asking him to play for them. Bart is remarkable and very talented!

BRIAN NARSTROM

Brian Narstrom, a self proclaimed campfire hack with a tendency to learn partial songs stumbled onto a live show in SL about a year ago and slowly became inspired. After showing up at a few open mic venues he has started doing shows (yes with completed songs). He's been playing accoustic guitar on and off for 15 plus years. You'll hear songs from Bread or the Beatles to Mraz and Train. Stop by and have some fun with us......

JUSTME CARLUCCI

Having been raised in Oklahoma, Justme brings to SL a back home strumming style of acoustic guitar along with some Bottle neck slide. Bridging a variety of genre's, covers include John Prine, Neil Young, Harry Chapin, Billy Joel, David Gray, Styx, Eagles, Cat Stevens, Merle Haggard, Garth Brooks, Keb Mo and more. Throw in a few originals and you have a mix that has something for everyone!

KEVINMTHOMAS CARPOOL aka KEVIN THOMAS

Kevin M. Thomas, an acoustic rock artist influenced by Sting, Steve Perry and Bruce Dickinson, is from Washington, D.C. Formerly signed to indie label Red Galaxy Records from Hollywood, California. His music has been featured in 2 MTV/Spike TV Productions entitled, "Tripped Out" and "10 Things Every Guy Should Experience". His music reached international audiences in the popular British television series, "Distant Shores!"

ROD HYX
Rod comes from West Palm Beach, FL. His performances in Second Life are acoustic and electric along the lines of classic rock and blues. His voice is deep and smooth and shows just how much he loves to sing. In RL, Rod does several open mics and really loves to get people up and dancing. Rod is in a band called RH Factor and can be seen on the band website RHFactor.us. (the one with the hat playing lead guitar on the left). Come listen sometime and enjoy the show. Check out search events or just go see him down at Guthries Folk Club on Gigli Live

*All the times and venues that these musicians can be found in the search under events or check to see if in the list of musicians and venues to the left of this blog*.

*Please note that the descriptions of the musicians are taken from notices in Second Life*

MICHAELJAMES MAGIC, A MUST SEE MUSICIAN

Formerly known as Dominick Manatiso. He was voted SL Country Artist of the Year in 2010. Michael has been singing for over 20yrs. Living in Missour he covers a huge variety of music. His influences include Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, James Taylor and Neil Diamond. Michael loves to entertain and it shows during his awesome shows. He loves to get his audience involved and is devoted to making sure a great time is enjoyed by all. He has his songlist readily available to all at his shows

CHECK OUT MAMAA SAIZ AN AMAZING MUSICIAN

Mamaa Saiz is a newcomer to performing in SL but he has played around Texas for many years including over a decade with Bowley and Wilson on the Greenville Avenue strip. He brings a unique treatment to a variety of music from jazz classics to country and western and throws in some comedy and tear jerkers along the way.

His acoustic guitar skills are amazing and he sings live with no back tracks. He has been influenced by many musicians including Carlos Jobim, Glenn Frye, James Taylor, and more.

You will want to listen to what this Mamaa sings and join his group 'Mamaa Saiz Listen' to hear him playing in SL venues.

MUSICIANS TO CHECK OUT IN SECOND LIFE

NEWEST LIST OF MUSICIANS TO SEE. CHECK SEARCH FOR DATES, TIMES AND LOCATION.

DUSTY SMYTHE

Dusty Smythe plays acoustic guitar with no backing tracks. Call it Folk, Acoustic Rock, or Old Hippie Songs.. In times of change, music becomes the language in the street. In addition to making people fall in love, music has ended wars, freed people, and make us smile. Dusty chooses songs where the lyrics matter; songs that tell stories! Dusty makes it a very enjoyable hour

KIESTA ALJON

Kiesta plays live music in SL; her instuments of choice are 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars and Hollow Body Gretsch on occasion :) and singing...soft rock, some smokey blues and a little folk music!Kiesta plays live music in SL; her instuments of choice are 6 and 12 string acoustic guitars and Hollow Body Gretsch on occasion :) and singing...soft rock, some smokey blues and a little folk music!


MICHAELJAMES MAGIC
Michael Has Been Singing For Over 20 Years Lives In Missouri And Covers A Huge Variety Of Music. His Influences Include Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, James Taylor And Neil Diamond. Michael Loves To Entertain And It Shows During His Shows. He Loves To Get The Crowds Involved And Is Devoted To Make Sure A Great Time Is Had By All. Michael Has His Songlist Readily Available To All With A List Available At His Shows

LUKE AUSTER
Luke has been singing and performing in Real Life since the age of 7! His passion for music has constantly continued to grow as well as his experience. Luke has not only brought his passion and experience, but also his enjoyment of singing into Second Life for one and all to enjoy and observe as well. His vocals are both unique and impressive...a voice that you don't want to miss.

LIGHTNIN LOWTIDE
Lightnin Lowtide is a Blues musican at his core and along with his Guitar Ruby he creates loops of guitar and bass guitar and plays harmonica to create a virtual band without using backtracks. He plays Classic Rock songs by Bob Dylan ,Jimi Hendrix,Rolling Stones and Elvis and more including Classic Country and his own original songs. His show is an enthusiastic one of love for music and a bit of insanity as he talks with his Guitar Ruby and she talks back !!

LAIDBACK CELT
Conceived on a blind date in the backseat of at '57 Chevy, LaidBack says he was born to rock. With a rock 'n roll voice, a rock 'n roll soul, an acoustic guitar with a little bit of distortion and a whole lot of attitude... who's to argue???

ICANDY OVERLAND
iCandy Overland is a seasoned professional lead singer in RL. She is bringing her craft to SL as a live vocal artist singing to handmade tracks. iCandy is an all-American girl who enjoys many genres of music, singing favorites from many era's. Song list is always updated with new songs weekly. No show is exactly the same. iCandy is able to to do multiple shows a day without repeating material-therefore her fans will enjoy coming to multiple shows. You have a singer that truly loves you, the fan

DAVID PERDU
New person to the grid David can be found at Guthrie's on Gigli Live region. Hailing from North Wales, David Perdu (RL name David Burton) is an accomplished songwriter and interpreter who has composed many thought-provoking and foot tapping songs. He has performed live both solo and with his band up and down the country for over ten years supporting fine artists such as Eric Roche and also playing backup guitar for numerous talented singer songwriters including a stint with Duffy in her formative years!

KITZIE LANE
She has been singing all her life and plays piano as well as guitar. In SL, she plays acoustic guitar (6 string and 12 string) and sings a variety of styles, mostly standard folk songs. She sings some Dylan, Donovan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkle, John Denver and others. Kitzie also likes ballads and love songs and is constantly adding new songs to the mix!


*All the times and venues that these musicians can be found in the search under events or check to see if in the list of musicians and venues to the left of this blog*.

*Please note that the descriptions of the musicians are taken from notices in Second Life*

CHECK OUT DENNYMAC AND OTHER SL MUSICIANS

DENNYMAC
DennyMac has been playing for so long that his callouses have callouses! After years in rock bands he has returned to his first love, acoustic fingerstyle guitar. His amazing skill and deep soulful voice will leave you wanting more. Heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, Peter Paul and Mary, Kingston Trio, James Taylor, the Beatles and of course Paul Simon, Larry Carleton, Richie Havens and many others, he plays your favorite covers as well as moving originals.
Also check out his shows with KatRose Serendipity

PAUL NOWLES
Cleveland Born/Jersey Heart
Paul Nowles is a virtual entertainer, Studio Musician and songwriter. He was born and raised near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame City (Cleveland, OH). His performances include music from the mid west, and the north coast - essentially
any music from Michigan to New York and a few states just south are fair game - music with sax, soul, groove, and funk... and most importantly: ROCK !!!

OBELOINKMENT WRIGGLESWORTH
Obeloinkment's show is different each time. Much different. Using a room full of odd acoustic instruments and percussion, Obe weaves a strange sonic tapestry that shifts through genres, styles, and states of mind. Using a looping sampler, he loops parts all live (there are NEVER prerecorded parts in the show) in a way that you'll have to hear to believe.
Sometimes the show is just acoustic guitar and vocals, other times patchwork instruments, beatboxing and pots and pans create a sort of organic electronica. Add a late 70's analog synth and things turn into the house music on the Millennium Falcon. A child of the late 80s and early 90s, some cover choices include bizzare versions of songs by The Cure, Tom Waits, Ween and Britney Spears.
Obeloinkment's human is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter in real life and plays drums for the band Aftergrass

JimmyT Dukes
A fabulously talented musician inspired by the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan JimmyT rocks every world he decides to enter. With a great eclectic sound sprinkled with blues and a lot of fiery guitar solos Jimmy will mesmerize you with his talent. Join us for a fantastic night of music

CHANDRA DEED
Being born in the South gave Chandra her country roots, but traveling with dance bands gave her that funky soul. Her music will either bring back a memory or hopefully help create a new one, by singing songs from the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and current - from Pop to R and B to Rock to Country. Chandra might be new to singing in SL, but is a seasoned entertainer, who sings regularly in the Windy City of Chicago.
Chandra has been performing in front of audiences since the age of three and shows no signs of slowing down. The only real way to describe her style is to say it is "Music....straight from the heart."

JOEUSA SHELBYVILLE
He made a living as lead singer in show group, lounge groups and playing six nights a week for 38 years. 16 years of the 38 years He did a single act playing guitar, singing as he played bass and organ pedals with his feet. But he still can't compete against the full sounds of Karaoke music and the backup vocals....so he chooses to use backing tracks.

MIMI CARPENTER
Mimi is a French musician who has been playing guitar and singing in Second life since September 2006. Drawing inspiration from a diverse range of musical styles, Mimi is pretty eclectic and her repertoire includes covers with strong rock, indie and pop influences, and a few originals accompanied by acoustic guitar.
" I wish to transmit what I feel through my music... It is for me a way to express myself as I am not so good in handling words, when I have to speak about myself and about what I feel..."

DHRUA, NEW FEMALE SINGER IN SECOND LIFE

I had the pleasure of meeting dhrua in RL when I was at the Chicago Jam!!!!
Dhrua is Second Life's newest female rising star. She brings you an amazing variety of music including blues, folk, jazz and country. She plays guitar, piano, harmonica, flute, percussion and other surprises as she weaves her life experiences into original songs sprinkled with meaningful and witty lyrics. Check her out and u will be hooked

FIRESTORM BASIC TROUBLESHOOTING

Basic Troubleshooting class material.

We will cover some of the basic methods and resources available to help you start to figure out where your problems might originate.This class is based on Firestorm but can apply to all viewers.

****Basic Troubleshooting*****

We all have the occasional problem with our viewer and need to get them "fixed" so we can get back to using our viewer, not fussing with it. This usually requires some amount of troubleshooting.

Troubleshooting is not always simple. In fact, most times it's a slow process as you eliminate one possibility after another until you find the root of the problem.

Sure, you could contact us in the Phoenix/Firestorm Viewer Support group for help, but then you have to deal with chat lag in there. Plus we'll start by asking you to do most of this stuff anyway!

So here are a number of things that you can do to start working on the problem on your own. If nothing else, you can determine what the problem is not.

****Show your work

If you make a change, especially if you're troubleshooting or just tinkering, write down what changes you've made. This is important if you're making a change to debug settings; if you don't remember what you changed, how do you change it back?

By clearing your settings. So save yourself some headache and jot down the changes you make, so you can put them back if you need to.

****RELOG, REBOOT, RESET

First thing to try in almost every case is a relog. It can clear most every temporary glitch, and most glitches are temporary.

If the problem is related to your location, teleport to a different one.

We have some space at Hippo Hollow you can use when you need a reliable location: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hippo%20Hollow/57/185/51

Or to find an empty water sim, open up your World Map (the bottom bar icon, or Ctrl-M, or World menu > World Map), type in Moses, Sulu, or another of your choice and click Find (or just press Enter), then click Teleport.

Even simpler, if you have the Navigation bar enabled, type in the region name and you will teleport right away

After you teleported, wait a minute or three. Give the systems time to complete the teleport and settle into the new sim. If after, say, three minutes the problem persists, then relog there.

If you still have the problem at this point, reboot the entire computer and try again. Some temporary glitches are held there, too.

If that didn't help, another thing that sometimes needs a reset is your router/modem. This is especially true when your packet loss is high (more on that later).

When you reset your router/modem, remove power completely. Unplug it, and leave it unplugged for several minutes.

I know that seems like a long time to some of us, but it's necessary so that your ISP will reset their side of your connection.

So, unplug it, then get up, go grab yourself a drink, or play fetch with your heffalump, or grab the mail, or read the funnies. Then come back to your router or modem and turn it back on. You may as well reboot the PC, too.

So relog, reboot, reset. Let this be your mantra.


****CACHE: TO CLEAR OR NOT TO CLEAR

I'm sure you've all heard someone mention four seemingly magical words to you when you had a problem. You know what I'm talking about: "clear cache and relog." I think at one time or another we've all said it.

I'm going to give you four new magic words of advice:

Don't clear your cache !!!!

Or to be more accurate: Be picky about why and when you clear your cache. Clearing cache doesn't fix everything. In fact, it doesn't fix nearly as many problems as you might think.

And doing it when it's unnecessary has its drawbacks, including slower initial rez times and excess bandwidth being pulled, which contributes to sim lag.

In a nutshell, "clear your cache" is something we'll recommend ONLY if the problem appears to be texture- or inventory-related. A full cache is almost always better than an empty one.

And if you're comfortable working in your filesystem, you can clear just those parts of the cache you need to clear: inventory cache for inventory problems and texture cache for texture problems.

You can find your cache folder by going to Preferences and then the Network & Cache tab.

Click the "Open" button alongside the path to your cache files location. In there you'll see some files ending with .inv.gz -- these are your inventory cache files -- and you'll see the texture cache folder.

You may see other files while the viewer is open: .dsf files are the sound cache. They're cleared when you log off.

So those are the DOs of cache-clearing. Here are some DON'Ts.

DON'T clear cache as a matter of routine maintenance. If there isn't something actually wrong with your cache, then this does nothing beneficial.

What that does is tax the sim while all your textures and inventory are re-fetched from the server.

DON'T clear it for problems unrelated to the cache. It won't help for:

- teleport problems
- upload problems
- movement or communication problems
- most kinds of lag
- most kinds of crashes
- a vast majority of bake fails

What problems does clearing your cache solve? It can help solve inventory problems and it can help solve texture problems.

There are some exceptions (e.g., crashes related to textures), but in many cases, other causes are more likely, and clearing cache doesn't have to be the first measure.

Let's discuss how to find out more information about particular issues you might be having.

****THINGS TO LOOK FOR

Here we're going to talk about how to use certain tools that can inform you of what's going on in your viewer and your computer.

***IN THE VIEWER


Cumulative packet loss shows a percentage of data that is lost, or failing to be delivered. It's in Help menu > About Firestorm, on the bottom line of the first section. It looks like: "Packets Lost: 760/302154 (0.3%)."

Data is constantly being sent from the viewer to the server and vice versa. This data is sent in chunks called Packets.

Each packet is checked to make sure it's complete and correct. If it isn't, a replacement is requested. Re-sending data adds to overall network delays.

High packet loss is a very good indicator that you are having network issues.

What is high packet loss? Well, in an ideal world, one packet lost is too much. But in reality, we like to see numbers under 1% if you've been online for a long time, under 5% if you've very recently logged in.

Resetting your router, wiring up if you're wireless or lowering your bandwidth setting can all help reduce packet loss.



The Statistics Bar (Ctrl-Shift-1) is another good troubleshooting tool. It has tons of information about your inworld environment; the only trick is knowing what to look for. Let's look at a few:

In the Basic section:

FPS > Frames per second. The higher the number here, the better, although most people will not notice any real difference over 20. A movie at the theater is 24 FPS, your TV is 25 or 30.

Rendering quality is the primary influence on FPS. Lower settings will almost always correspond to higher performance speed.

Packet Loss > This shows the realtime packet loss. Lower is better, and infrequent spikes may be expected. If it stays high for a long period of time you will experience lower performance.

For some things, looking at realtime packet loss will be useful, like watching for lag when you do something or go somewhere; for checking your overall network performance, cumulative packet loss is more useful.

Ping Sim > The lower the number, the better. This is the time it takes for information to travel between you and the server.

NOTE: your RL location can make a difference here, but your overall network quality anywhere along the line from your computer to the SL server can cause high ping times.

What is a high ping time? Typically over 250ms is outside the "good" range, 400ms is starting to get too high. And keep in mind: 250ms is a quarter of a second. Several lifetimes to a packet of data.

Here;s a tip: If you're experiencing wildly high ping times, ask others nearby if they are as well. If no one is nearby, ask a friend, or ask folks from the group to come by.

If you all see high ping times, tis a server issue.

In the "Simulator" section:

Time Dilation > This is a ratio of simulator script time compared to real time. Simply put, it's how much script execution could be done in a single frame of time.

A reading of 1 means all scripts in the queue do everything they needed to do in that one frame; a reading of .5 means it takes two frames to do the same script work.

Sim FPS > The simulator frame rate. This should now always be the same as the physics frame rate -- 45.0 when things are running well.

Physics FPS > The frame rate at which the physics engine is running. This should normally be at or near 45.0.

Pending Downloads > This is the number of downloads from the asset server to the simulator that are pending. If this is greater than 1 you may see delays in viewing notecards or scripts, and in rezzing objects.

Pending Uploads > This is the number of uploads from the simulator to the asset server that are pending. If this is greater than zero there may be performance issues when attempting to teleport.

There is one more thing that you can look at way down near the bottom in the Time section.

Spare Time, if this is sitting at 0 then the sim is either at or past the limit of what it can actually handle.

More information on the statistics bar is available at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Statistics_Bar_Guide


***WHERE TO LOOK ON YOUR COMPUTER

The Windows Task Manager, Mac Activity Monitor or Linux System Monitor, among others, can show you what processes are active on your computer as well as how much memory is being used.

There are several applications available that can help you with troubleshooting as well, but you will need varying degrees of technical knowledge to use them.

I'm going to mention Windows programs, but there are equivalent programs for Mac and Linux. Look in your First Aid kit for the Basic Troubleshooting Useful Links notecard.

Net Limiter can be used to monitor your computer's bandwidth and what is using it.

LogViewer Pro can show you viewer logs in a more-readable format. It doesn't interpret the logs, just makes them pretty

Wireshark can help you diagnose network issues at a painfully detailed level.

These are just examples. There are lots of different tools available out there.

Another good thing to keep in mind about hard-to-diagnose problems: even if the viewer is the only thing being troublesome, that doesn't mean it's the source of the trouble.

For instance, we've had several users with issues whom we could not help, despite our best efforts. Each of these folks ended up completely reformatting their hard drives and starting off with a fresh install of their OS.

After that, most of them found that the viewer ran just fine.

Coincidence?

Well, consider that MOST people with infected PCs don't know they're infected, and an infected PC will have issues.

It's estimated that 32% of the computers with AV protection are infected. (from http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1224 ). This is old data, but not invalid.

****ANTIVIRUSES AND FIREWALLS

Even though they do good work, antiviruses and firewalls can end up being responsible for certain issues, most commonly concerning voice, media and Search.

We have had many reports of issues like SLPlugin being flagged as "suspicious" and/or being misidentified as a virus. Antiviruses may quarantine or even delete files.

And Firewalls have been known to block SLVoice from running.

In both cases you can manually add the affected files as exceptions. How to do that depends on the particular Antivirus and firewall you're use using.

If you're not sure how to go about this, check your program's documentation. Search engines are your friends.

Also worth mentioning is that your antivirus may not only stop some things from working but can also affect your performance.

One of our users discovered that his antivirus program was scanning DLL program events as they occurred, which severely affected his framerate.

By adding the Firestorm, SLPlugin and SLVoice executables to his AVs exclusion list for that scan, his framerate returned to normal.

Fortunately, this person knew enough to be able to figure out the source of the problem, and was brave enough to fiddle with settings. It takes some doing to dig in deep. Don't be afraid to fumble around. Just remember to document your work.

****IS IT JUST ME?

How do you know whether the problems you're having are your viewer, your network or the servers? Well, we've touched on some tools and tips for checking the viewer and the network, now let's look at ways to check the servers.

***SECOND LIFE GRID STATUS

It often helps to check the Second Life Grid Status page to see if what's happening to you is affecting the rest of the grid.

You can go to the Help menu -> Check grid status, or open http://status.secondlifegrid.net/ in your web browser.

Of course, you might have noticed the issue before the status page is updated, so it doesn't hurt to check back.

You can also use the SL-RSS HUD that will check frequently and pop up an alert if something changes on the page. It's free on Marketplace.

***TRACKING "KNOWN" ISSUES

If an issue has affected a number of people, then chances are it's either been documented on our wiki or our JIRA or on Linden Lab's jira.

This can be true regardless of the source of the problem, so troubleshooting should include searching for previous reports.

**WIKI

So you've heard we have a wiki, right?

The Phoenix/Firestorm wiki is updated constantly and provides loads of documentation on issues and their fixes, or workarounds, as they arise.

On Firestorm the F1 key on most keyboards will take you straight to the wiki main page.

Here are some important wiki links:

Firestorm main: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=start
Firestorm troubleshooting: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=firestorm_troubleshooting
Phoenix main: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=phoenix_viewer_documentation
Phoenix troubleshooting: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=troubleshooting_and_quick_fixes

Use these links if you want to browse the list of available pages. This is useful if you have a problem but you aren't sure what it's called.

In the top right of every page is a Search bar. Use this to find pages based off clues or symptoms. Details matter, type in cloud and you might find lots of unhelpful pages, but type in ruthed and you would see pages about bake failure.

The more time you spend poking around, the more familiar you'll become with it. So browse it when you don't need it, skim a page or two a day, and in no time you'll be abe to find what you are looking for.

And here's a secret: even if you don't absorb all the info when you first read it, and who does, it might ring a bell when you have a problem.

You'll be able to say, "That sounds familiar! I think that was on the wiki!" and you'll have a better sense of where to find it.

As for when you do have a problem and you're searching the wiki for help, when you find the relevant pages there might be several suggested solutions.

Be sure to read each one carefully; sometimes there might be small differences in what is recommended compared to what you've tried. And these small differences can mean a lot!

For instance, did you know there's a big difference between "Replace" and "Wear" when you're trying to de-ruth yourself? Or between a crash-to-desktop and a forced logout? It's on the wiki.

**JIRA

Both Linden Lab and Phoenix/Firestorm use a web-based issue tracker called the JIRA for reporting and working on bugs and other matters. LL calls theirs a bug tracker because they try to keep support issues in a different system.

The JIRA can seem intimidating and hard to navigate if you're not accustomed to it, especially LL's because of its size. It's frickin' ginormous.

But if you take a deep breath and just dive in, you may find a wealth of helpful info.

Phoenix/Firestorm JIRA: http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/
Linden Lab JIRA: http://jira.secondlife.com/

Like the wiki, but even more so, spending time looking around can go a long way in helping you get used to it. And when you're used to it, you can more easily find things.

Also like the wiki there's a search field at the top right. Put your search terms there and all the jira issues mentioning those terms will be listed. You can also get more search options by going to Issues menu> Search for Issues.

When your search results come up, they're sorted by relevance, at least what the program thinks is relvance. Clicking on the column headers like "Key," "Created," or "Updated", helps you find the most recent issues.

In each issue, or ticket if you will, look for helpful information in:
- Summary, which is te title of the issue
- Description, which is a basic rundown of the issue. In some cases, it might include steps to reproduce a bug.
- Comments, which may include responses from team members and/or other people with the same issue. Solutions or workarounds may be provided here. Add your own, if you have a solution, or more information about the problem.

Note that support jiras can only be viewed by the person creating it and the Phoenix/Firestorm team members. This is necessary to protect our users' privacy.

Also note: If you've never accessed the JIRA, you'll need to create an account. Please used your SL name, not your RL name. We can't use your RL information.

**WIKI + JIRA

We even have a wiki pages that can help you find currently relevant JIRAs:

http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=hot_ll_jira_issues

This page is updated regularly with lists of currently common issues and direct links to their JIRAs.

Well, that's it. I hope it wasn't too painful. Hopefully you now feel better equipped to tackle issues that come up, or at least get more information, so that you can quickly return to enjoying your SL!

FINDING SCRIPT ATTACHMENTS

How to quickly find what scripted attachments you are wearing, and where they are attached.

So you've been asked to remove some scripts at a venue to reduce lag, or you just want to keep your script count as low as possible. How do you find what exactly you have on that is heavily scripted?

Sure you could right click and choose script info on each attachment you're wearing but that can be a little slow and some attachments are hidden.

There is a quick and easy way to find out right in your viewer that a lot of people don't know about.


SCRIPT 1A
Start by opening about land. You can do this a few ways depending on what options you have enabled in the viewer. If uoi have the Navigation Bar enabled you can click on the land button.

If you have the Location showing in the Menu Bar you can click on that.
Regardless of your settings you can open it through the World Menu by clicking on Parcel Details.


SCRIPT2A
Once you have About Land open be sure you are on the General tab you'll see a Script Info button on the bottom left.

Clicking on that will open the Script Information window. It will open on the Region Memory tab which can be handy for land owners or those with land rights.

The information you see depends on your rights to the parcel you're inspecting:

If you are the estate owner or an estate manager, each individual object in the region is listed:

Total memory used for the entire region.
Total number of URLs used and available for the entire region.

If you are the parcel owner, or have object return powers for the parcel through a group, individual objects on all parcels in the region owned by the owner of the parcel being inspected are listed:

Total memory used for all objects on all parcels in the region that are owned by the owner of the parcel.
Total URLs used and available for all objects on all parcels in the region owned by the owner of the parcel.

Otherwise, no individual objects are listed:

The top gives some basic information about the region and script usage in it:

Number of parcels
Total memory used
Number of URLs used (the term URL here does not just refer to streaming video like YouTube, but also to scripts that use HTTP to communicate with other objects, such as, for example, some scripted vending systems.)

You can click on any column header to sort the list.

Size (kb): Indicates how much memory is used by the script(s) in the object.
URLs: Indicates how many URL(s) the object is using.
Object Name: Name of the scripted object.
Object Owner: Name of the object's owner.
Parcel: Name of the parcel on which the object is located.

Refresh List: Self explanatory.
Return: Immediately return the selected object to its owner; there is no confirmation request, so be careful!
Highlight: Displays a beacon showing the location of the selected object.


SCRIPT3A
Click on the Avatar tab and you'll will see a list of all scripted attachments that you are wearing, along with the size of the scripts in them and where they are attached to your avatar.

Size (kb): Indicates how much memory is used by the script(s) in the object.
URLs: Indicates how many URL(s) the object is using.
Object Name: Name of the scripted object.
Location: Name of the object's attachment point.

From there simply open your inventory to the worn tab and take the offending object(s) off.
Alternatively if the object is copy and mod you can make a copy of it, then working on the copy not the original, remove the scripts from it (Build Menu, Scripts sub-menu, Remove scripts from selection)

FIRESTORM VIEW AVATAR PHYSICS

Firestorm Avatar Physics

What is it?

Firestorm Avatar Physics lets you customise how your Avatar's breasts, belly, and butt move in response to your movements.
This new feature in Firestorm is the same feature that is in Linden Lab Viewer 2 and allows personal customisation and the ability to easily share your settings with friends by passing each other physics layers.
You can see a video of this feature in action here.
Note: This was filmed on an early development version of Viewer 2, but the effect is the same. Will update with a Firestorm Vid soon!

Who Can See It?

If you choose to use this feature, your Avatar Physics movement will be visible to anyone using Firestorm Preview 3 or later, Phoenix 1102 or later and Viewer 2.6.3 or later as well as up to date versions of Kirsten's Viewer, Singularity Viewer & other Third Party Viewers who also update to add this feature. Snowglobe and SL 1.23 will be unable to see your Avatar Physics.

How Do I Use It?

Note: Make sure you have the Avatar Physics Detail option in Avatar → Preferences → Graphics
up high enough before you begin to edit
To add Avatar Physics to your avatar you must first make a Physics layer
Open inventory
Click the + button at the bottom left → New Clothes → New Physics
Wear this New Physics layer
Right click the Physics layer → Edit
Now you are ready to choose your settings

Note: If your avatar is male, you can only modify your belly and butt.
Playing a stationary walking animation or similar is a good way to test what your settings look like as you edit.
Choose your settings then click “Save” top left to save to the same layer you are wearing, “Save As” bottom left to save to a new layer which will automatically be worn or “Undo Changes” to roll back anything changed since the last save.
Exit Appearance.
You are now wearing an Avatar Physics item. As you dance or move around, your Avatar's breasts, belly, and butt will move around in the way you specified.
You can wear, take off, edit, and create physics items just like any other clothing item.

What Does Each Slider Do?

Bounce: Shaking vertically in response to your Avatar moving vertically.

Cleavage: Shaking side to side, but to the inside rather than to the outside, in response to your avatar moving forward and backwards.

Sway: Shaking side to side, but to the outside rather than to the inside, in response to your avatar moving side to side.

Max effect: Controls the maximum range of movement. If set to 0, the feature is off.
Think of this as a general amplifier of the “bounce” effect. The higher this slider, the higher the initial bounce impulse.
Firm when it's low, saggy when it's high.

Spring: Controls the speed of vibration.
A higher number means your body part will vibrate more quickly.
Think of this as a “centre spring”, it pulls the body part in question back to its neutral position.
If this value is low, the body part “swings” around the centre more. If it's high, there's not much bounce, rather a fast vibration.

Gain: Controls the size of the effect when movement is triggered.
A higher number causes a larger effect.

Damping: Controls how long it takes for movement to stop after it's triggered.
A higher number causes the movement to stop sooner. This works directly against any bounce.
A good analogy here is High Damping: Corset, Medium Damping: Swimwear, No Damping: bare breasts.

Advanced Parameters

Breast/Belly/Butt Mass: Controls the modeled mass of the body part.
A higher number makes the body part look heavier. This parameter affects all the other parameters.

Breast/Belly/Butt Gravity: Controls the strength of the pull toward the ground.
A higher number means the pull is stronger.

Breast/Belly/Butt Drag: Controls the effect of air resistance.
A higher number increases the air resistance.
With drag turned to 100%, if you jump up, your butt will sag tremendously.
With drag turned to 0%, if you jump up, your butt may move down slightly.
Turning drag up is sort of like pretending that you're moving through jello, so as you move forward, your body parts refuse to come along with you (i.e. they 'drag behind'). ”

Turning Avatar Physics Movement On And Off

If you don't want to see any Avatar Physics movement, including your own, you can disable it in your Viewer.
You can also lower the setting so it is less taxing on your computer.
The settings to control this are under Avatar → Preferences → Graphics.
Avatar Physics Slider

This controls the frequency of display updates for Avatar Physics:

To make Avatar Physics movement smooth, move the slider to a high setting.
To make Avatar Physics less taxing for your computer, move the slider to a lower setting.
Avatar physics movement will be less smooth, and you will not see Avatar Physics movement of avatars who are far away.
A lower setting decreases the update frequency, so Avatar Physics movement will be jerkier.
A higher setting makes movement smoother but may decrease performance.
To turn off Avatar Physics completely, put the Avatar Physics Detail slider at its lowest setting.
This only prevents your Viewer from showing you Avatar Physics movement. If you disable Avatar Physics in your Viewer but your Avatar is wearing a physics item, others can still see your Avatar Physics movement in their Viewers.
If you don't want others to see your Avatar Physics movement:
Don't wear a physics item, or
Wear a physics item, but set the slider for every Max Effect setting to 0.
If you don't want others to see your Avatar Physics movement but wish to see it on yourself and others:
Go to Avatar → Preferences → Firestorm → General → Tick “Dont send Avatar Physics to server”.

Help! I can't get my Avatar to look the way I want. Can you suggest some settings?

Yes we can!

Check out the MarketPlace for avatar physics. There are freebies there

Known Issues

Attachments don't move with my breasts, belly, or butt: This is a technical limitation. There is currently no way to create an attachment point that moves with your breasts, belly, or butt, so attachments can only move with your internal avatar skeleton.
See VWR-25446.
When laggy, Physics do strange things: Unfortunately this can happen but the strange effects you see are totally client side. Only you see this. You will still look correct to others. If your FPS drops low, your Physics may start to behave in an “interesting” way. Similarly, extremely high FPS (over 100) can give strange client side effects. The fact that Avatar Physics can bug out at very low or high FPS is a known issue to LL and they are working on improvements to address this. The main factor here seems to be the gain setting. If gain is high, it'll get “wiggly” when FPS drops too low. Details can be found on these LL JIRA issues: VWR-25545, VWR-25585, VWR-25584.
I've heard others on Viewers that don't support Avatar Physics will see me as Ruthed, is this true? This is possible. Please see VWR-25479 on the LL JIRA for details on this issue. There can be no 100% fix for this as its an inherent incompatibility between LL's Avatar Physics code and older V1 based viewers. LL refuse to fix this issue server-side, since SL 1.23 and Snowglobe are the only viewers unable to be fixed to work around this issue. All other Third Party Viewers can be patched to eliminate this “bug”. No Viewer 2 based Viewer will see you as Ruthed. Other users on Firestorm and Phoenix 1102 & above wont see you as Ruthed. Singularity Viewer already has Avatar Physics added, so you will look correct to users of this Viewer. Its expected that Imprudence, Ascent and the other TPV's will be updating shortly. If your friends tell you that you look Ruthed to them, they will need to update their Viewer.
Workarounds for this issue:

If you appear Ruthed to friends on out of date Viewers, you can do the following:

Take off your Avatar Physics Layer.
You must then TP to another SIM or relog for the server to display your shape correctly again to out of date Viewers.
You will still see others Avatar Physics correctly, but no one including yourself will see yours.
or…

Go to Avatar → Preferences → Firestorm → Avatar → Tick “Don't send Avatar Physics to server”. You must then TP to another SIM or relog for this settings change to kick in.
You will then look correct to any viewer, you will still see your own Avatar Physics & those of others, but nobody will be able to see your Avatar Physics effects.

FIRESTORM VIEWER AO

Firestorm Client AO class material.

The Firestorm viewer has a built-in AO (Animation Overrider). This makes the use of scripted AOs unnecessary, which in turn reduces the amount of scripts you wear, and so server-side lag.

Without an AO, the avatar will use basic default Linden-defined animations.

The Firestorm client AO replaces the usual scripted AO by duplicating its functions, without the script overhead.

First a brief explanation of the terms as they are used here.

AO: Animation Override or Animation Overrider. Generally, a scripted attachment worn as a HUD, containing animations and notecards which, along with the scripts, animate the avatar while it is in certain states, such as standing, walking, flying, etc.

Animation Set: The collection of animations which, taken together, make up any given AO.

Animation Group: One or more animations which serve to replace a single animation state. Examples of animation groups include stands, sits, walks, etc. All of the animation groups, together, make up an animation set.


AO BUTTONS
The AO is activated by clicking on the right side of the button labeled AO; it will show a check mark when enabled.. To disable it simply click on the checkmark. You can also type "cao on" and "cao off" in local chat.

If you are using the Vintage skin the AO is activated by clicking on the AO button on the right side of the bottom toolbar.

Clicking the AO button opens the AO window. On the Vintage skin click the arrow on the right side of the AO button.


AO MINI
The mini AO window gives quick and easy access to a few basic functions, such as moving from one stand animation to another, toggling sit overrides and loading a new set of animations.

This small window has a wrench icon; clicking that opens the AO window to its largest size, allowing full control of the AO.

Basic functions of the AO can be accomplished via the mini AO view

Currently loaded animation set: Referring to the image above, the currently loaded set is named TPWtest.

By clicking the small down arrow, you can easily select another set (if others are available, of course).

The wrench icon expands the mini window to full size for greater control; more about the wrench icon shortly..

The two arrows switch to the previous and next animation in the current group, respectively.

The “Sit” checkbox indicates whether the AO should override sit animations that are part of scripted furniture.

If this is enabled, the AO will try to force the use of whatever sit animation you have in the animation set; if disabled, then the animation in the furniture will be used.

Note: Animation priority will always have precedence; if the animation in the furniture has higher priority than the one in your animation set, it will be used regardless of how you have this checkbox set.

Animation priority is set at upload and cannot be changed afterward, not even by the creator - unless the creator uploads again and sets a different priority.

For greater control over the AO, click the Wrench icon; this will open the AO window to maximum size.


AO SETS
The Current animation set is shown in the top drop-down. Clicking the down arrow beside it allows for the selection of an alternate animation set (if you have others available, of course).


AO FULL
The check mark to the right of the animation set name will activate the animation set. Click this if you have picked a new one.

Default: check this if you wish to make the current animation set the default when you start Firestorm.

Override sits: Does the same thing as the Sits checkbox described above.

Be Smart: If this is enabled, the AO will try to determine whether the furniture being sat on has an animation; if it determines that it does, it will disable the sit in the AO, so the one in the furniture will be used instead.

Disable Stands in Mouselook: If this is checked, the AO will disable stand animations when mouselook is entered. This is useful for combat situations, for example.

+ Button: Click this button to manually define a new animation set.

Trash: To delete the current animation set, click this button.


AO GROUPS
Animation Group: With this drop down you can select an animation group, such as Standing, Walking, Running, etc. Having selected one, you can then change the order in which animations are played, by using ….

Up/Down Arrows: moves the currently selected animation up or down in the list, thus changing the order in which the animations are played in the animation group.

Trash: Clicking this will delete the currently selected animation from the animation group. This will NOT delete the animation itself, but just the reference to it, from the group.

Cycle: Enabling this will cause a different animation to be played, from the selected group, at each “cycle time” interval.

Randomize order: Enabling this causes the animations in the selected group to be played in random order.

Cycle time: Indicates how long an animation should play before the next one begins.

Reload: Forces the AO to reload the configuration of the current animation set.

Left/Right Arrows: Skips to the previous/next animation in the current animation group. These are the same arrows seen in the mini AO view, described previously.

Down Arrow: The arrow in the bottom right corner collapses the full AO window into the mini view, which was already described.

Preparing to load the AO

If you own a scripted AO, the type worn as a HUD attachment, you can get the animations and notecard to transfer to the client AO quite easily. You can use one of two methods to do so.

AO METHOD 1
Follow these steps if you are in a location where you can build; it requires the ability to rez out.

This is the method you need to use if the animations in the AO are no copy.

Rez a cube on the ground.

If you are wearing the scripted AO, detach it.

Cam in to the cube you made, then drag the AO onto it. HUDs are normally very small when rezzed in-world, and can be hard to see if you are not cammed in.

Right click the AO you rezzed out and select Open. A window opens which will list the contents of the AO; once this has fully populated, click Copy to Inventory.

This will result in the creation of a folder in your inventory, containing everything in the AO: scripts, animations and notecards.

If the AO is copyable, you can now delete it; otherwise, take it back into your inventory. Then delete the cube.

Locate the folder that was created in the step above. This folder can be dragged to another folder where it is out of the way but still available, like the Animations folder, for example.

Please do NOT put them on the Firestorm #AO folder in your inventory.

AO METHOD 2

You can follow these steps if you are unable to rez the AO out in-world, for whatever reason.

Locate the Animations folder in your inventory - it is at the top. Right Click the folder name, and select New Folder.

Type in a name for the folder - for example, give it the name of the AO you are transferring.

Make sure the AO HUD is worn; right click it and select Edit.

Click on the Content tab.

Once the AO contents are all displayed, select all items: click on the top one, then use the scroller to scroll to the bottom, press and hold Shift, and click on the last item.

Drag all the items into the folder you created in your inventory.

Close the edit window.

Loading the AO

There are two methods for loading the AO. You can either use a notecard that is in the ZHAO II format, or do it manually. The manual method requires no notecard, just animations.

Multiple AOs can be loaded, and you can switch from one to another simply by selecting the set within the Firestorm AO.

Using the notecard method

The notecard must be in standard ZHAO II format. Most AO creators support this format so you should not run into issues.

However, it must be noted that some major vendors have extended the ZHAO II format, and thus their AO notecard will need to be edited before it can be used in the Firestorm AO. Similarly, older AOs which use the old ZHAO format will have to be converted.

Unlike Phoenix, the animations and notecard do not need to be placed in a special predefined folder. However, they do need to be together in the same place.

Please do NOT put them on the Firestorm #AO folder in your inventory.

Once imported, the Firestorm client AO creates a new special folder: #Firestorm → #AO. This folder is protected - meaning it cannot be deleted, nor items removed from it under normal circumstances.

Therefore, avoid dragging items into it. Should you do so by mistake, please refer to http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=fs_ao_folder to see how to fix this.

Inside that are several more folders, containing links to the original animations.

So do not delete the original animations used or the AO will “break”.

As noted above, the Firestorm AO supports notecards in the standard ZHAO II format. Your copy of the class notes contains an example of what such a notecard looks like here.

􀀔
AO SAMPLE NC
Notice how the animation state is in brackets, followed by each name of the animation separated with a pipe character “|”. Lines should not be longer than 255 characters.

In the sample NC, the animations in the Standing group have been broken up into several lines so they are shorter and easier to read.

It is best to delete any/all lines containing comments, before loading into the client AO. Comment lines usually start with a # character.

Locate the notecard which defines the AO that you got by one of the two methods described previously.

Open the Firestorm AO to maximum, then drag the AO notecard onto the Firestorm AO window.

The notecard is parsed and if all goes well, you have finished transferring the AO.

Select options to apply, like whether this will be the default animation set, whether to override sits, etc.

****Creating an AO Manually

There is no need to have a prepared AO with a notecard to create an AO in Firestorm; you can “roll your own” if you have animations to use.

You can use the animations from a scripted AO, just use one of the above methods for getting them out of your present AO.

AO METHOD 3
You should have the AO window at maximum size.

Click the + button near the top right corner to create a new animation set. You will be prompted to supply a name for it.

A new, blank animation set is created; make sure it is showing in the list of animation sets. You can now begin to fill. It starts with the Standing group selected.

In your inventory, select the animation(s) to be used as stands. Drag them from your inventory onto the AO window. (Note that it is faster to drag them all in at once rather than one by one.) The AO processes, then you can continue.

Once you have dropped all the stands in, you can switch to another animation group, like Walking. Again, select and drag the animations from your inventory onto the AO.

Repeat this for all groups for which you have animations.

Select options to apply, like whether this will be the default animation set, whether to override sits, etc.

****AO-Related Options

There is one option related to the Firestorm AO in preferences.

Turn avatar around when walking backward: in Preferences → Move and View → Firestorm. If enabled, when you press the down arrow to walk backward, your avatar will turn to face the camera. If disabled, then your avatar will walk backward.

The Firestorm client AO information is stored in your inventory and thus usable from any computer you log in on, just like a regular HUD based AO.

We have a video of our Firestorm AO class available for you to watch anytime at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQtS7AVdLms&feature=plcp

The following Firestorm AO videos are available for you to watch. Even though they are based on the old version we strongly suggest watching them as they do show how to load the AO.

Import to AO part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1RXd_29AXo
Customize your AO part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owl-Dv3dg8c
Options in AO part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBcVsTE8Zu0

AO SAMPLE BLANK CARD

[ Standing ]
[ Walking ]
[ Sitting ]
[ Sitting On Ground ]
[ Crouching ]
[ Crouch Walking ]
[ Landing ]
[ Standing Up ]
[ Falling ]
[ Flying Down ]
[ Flying Up ]
[ Flying ]
[ Flying Slow ]
[ Hovering ]
[ Jumping ]
[ Pre Jumping ]
[ Running ]
[ Turning Right ]
[ Turning Left ]
[ Floating ]
[ Swimming Forward ]
[ Swimming Up ]
[ Swimming Down ]

PROFILES

Profiles

Profiles are a way for people to share information about themselves, what they do, the things the like or dislike, special places they recommend, and so on.

Profiles of Others

Avatar Tab

Here is a sample of what you will see when looking at someone else's profile:

UUID Key: This is the avatar's Universally unique identifier, a key which uniquely identifies this avatar from all others.
Copy URI (button): Copies the URI for the avatar to the clipboard. This looks like:
secondlife:///app/agent/989652fe-598c-4324-8712-1e8cede7cb97/about
Name: Self explanatory
Online status: will show whether the avatar si online or offline.
Profile picture
Born: Shows Month, day year and exact age.
Example:
08/27/2006 (4 years 9 months old; 1745 days)
Account Info: Indicates Resident status, and whether payment information is registered with LL.
Partner: If the avatar is partnered, the partner's name will be shown here.
Groups: Shows the list of publicly visible groups to which the avatar belongs.
About: A brief summary written by the avatar to describe him/herself.
Find on Map (button): This will be greyed out if not on your friends list; otherwise, this will open a map showing the avatar's current location in-world, if online.
Offer Teleport (button): Sends a teleport offer to the avatar; if accepted, the avatar will be brought to your current location.
Add Friend (button): Sends a request to the avatar offering friendship. If accepted, this results in their calling card being added to your Calling Cards inventory folder.
Pay (button): Allows you to send L$ directly to the avatar.
Instant Message (button): Opens an instant message window for direct one-on-one communication.
Block (button): Blocks the avatar from communicating with you. Equivalent to the “Mute” button in Phoenix viewer.
Gear (button): Clicking this gives a menu with one item: Share. Selecting that, an IM window opens, and inventory items may be given to he other avatar by dragging them into it.
NOTE: You may also give inventory items by dragging them from your inventory onto any part of the avatar's profile.

Picks Tab

This tab shows the avatar's Picks. Picks are generally used to record favorite locations in SL, and also frequently, close friends, or special past events. Note that picks are always associated with a location.

Clicking on the arrow to the right of each will open a detail view about that particular location. To return to the list of Picks, click the arrow the top left of the window. Clicking the More link will show a small caption as hovertext with the same information given on the detailed view.

Info (button): Same as clicking the arrow to the right of each Pick.
Teleport (button): To visit the location in Second Life, click this.
Map (button): Opens a map showing the location of the specific Pick.
1st Life Tab

Optionally used for an avatar's real life information.

There is space for a photo and brief text.

Notes & Privacy Tab

This tab allows you to write your own private notes about an avatar. These notes are not visible to anyone but yourself.

Also, this is where you can allow the avatar to do the following:

See my online status: If checked, this avatar will be able to see your online status.
See me on the map: If enabled, the avatar will be able to locate you in SL (using the Find on Map button described above), and possibly teleport to your location, if they wish.
Edit, delete or take my objects: Gives the avatar the ability to edit items you own; this is known as “edit rights”.

Your Own Profile

Your own profile - which can be accessed by right clicking your avatar and selecting Profile - looks a bit different in layout from that of others. But the same information is all there.

Here too, you can access your UUID: you can “Copy URI” to copy it to the clipboard. The More Info and Picks tabs show the same information as described above in the Profiles of Others section.

The focus here will be editing your own profile. To do that, click the Edit Profile button.

Now you can change your profile picture by clicking on the space and selecting a new one. You may change the text where you describe yourself. And finally, you can opt to have your profile show up in search results or not.

On the More info tab, you can give real life details if you chose. Again, you can supply a picture and text. You may also give the URL to your personal website.

Note that in Firestorm, web links can be placed in any text part of a profile; they will be clickable when viewed by others.

Once completed editing, click Save Changes - or Cancel to revert to what you had before.

To edit Picks or Classifieds, click the Picks tab. This has two sub-tabs: Picks and Classifieds. In each case, you can use the two icons near the bottom of the window:

+ Icon: allows you to add a new picks or classified. Note that the location you are at, will be added automatically; this cannot be changed manually - but see below.
Trash Icon: with this, you can delete the currently selected pick or classified ad.
If you wish to modify an existing pick or classified, right click it and select Edit. Then you will be able to change the title, description, and set a new location.

PARCEL WINDLIGHT

Parcel WL

Overview

Parcel Windlight sharing is a feature of Firestorm that allows land owners to specify a Windlight preset for the viewer to use while on their land at the parcel level.

How It Works

5 seconds after entering land with parcel WL, the viewer will prompt asking for permission to change settings or ignore them. All permission are reset upon relogging.

Clearing the WL settings after they have been applied is simple, just change them via any of the regular means. Parcel WL settings will only reapply after leaving and entering again. Revoking permission and resetting to region default is possible by clicking the WL icon in the status bar at the top of the viewer to the left of the location info.

Options

You can control whether to enable windlight settings that others have set on their land, on not - as well as cases in which to allow those setting to be applied automatically. This is done in Preferences → Firestorm → Windlight.

Use Phoenix Parcel Windlight: if this is enabled, then any parcel-level windlight settings will be parses when you enter a parcel, and you will be asked whether you wish to apply them or not. If this is checked, then settings from your own land will always be applied automatically.
Auto apply WL settings from friend's land: If this is enabled, any windlight settings on parcels belonging to friends will be automatically applied.
Auto apply WL settings from my group's land: If this is enabled, any windlight settings on parcels owned by your currently active group, will be automatically applied.
Auto apply WL settings from any parcel: If this is enabled, parcel windlight settings will always be automatically applied, regardless of how the two options above are set.

For Parcel Owners

The land owner just needs to put a plain text string at the end of the parcel description. Parcel description is set in the About Land floater, General tab.

/*Windlight Sky: "[name of the preset]"*/
Windlight water presets are also supported:

/*Windlight Sky: "[name of the preset]" Water: "[name of the WL water preset]"*/
Water settings can be used by its self just like sky if wanted.

Example: If the sky preset is to be [TOR] BIG SUN - Awwyeah and the water preset [TOR] Watermelon juice and the parcels description is ”My awesome place” then the parcel description would be like this:

My awesome place

/*Windlight Sky: "[TOR] BIG SUN - Awwyeah" Water: "[TOR] Watermelon juice"*/
Zones

Parcel WL settings also support zoned settings based on altitude. This allows skyboxes to have a different sky settings than ground level.

/*Windlight Sky @ [lower]m to [upper]m: "[name of preset]"*/
Example: If the parcel wide settings are to be [TOR] MIDDAY - Cheery cyan for the sky and [TOR] Ice-like for the water with a skybox between 500 meters and 600 meters using [TOR] NIGHT - Moony for its sky, the config line would like like so:

/*Windlight Sky: "[TOR] MIDDAY - Cheery cyan" Water: "[TOR] Ice-like" Sky @ 500m to 600m: "[TOR] NIGHT - Moony"*/
The parcel wide settings for sky and water are optional. Zones can be used by themselves leaving the rest of the land at region defaults.

NOTE: There is a 3 meter minimum distance between zones, zones should be at least 10 meters apart and over lap the desired area by a least 5 meters to allow for the 5 second delay on detecting changes.

Advanced

If there is not enough space in the description for the desired config line, there are several optional formatting and whitespace

/*Sky:"[preset]"Water:"[preset]"*/
Is the same as:

/*Windlight Sky:"[preset]" Water:"[preset]"*/
Zones can be shortened as well:

/*Sky@[lower]-[upper]:"[preset]"*/

http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=firestorm

FIRESTORM VIEWER MANAGING GROUPS

Managing Groups

Individual groups are managed via the Groups Panel. This can be accessed in various ways:

By using the People Icon on the bottom button bar;
By opening it from the Conversations window, Contacts → Groups tab;
from the list of groups in a profile
Multiple group panels may be opened.

The Groups Panel has four tabs; these will be discussed in the sections below.

General

This first tab has general information about the group.

Group Key: this shows the group's UUID - Universally unique identifier. To the right of this is a button, Copy URI, which copies the group's URI to your clipboard. A URI resembles a SLURL, and may be used to send a link to others to suggest they join a group, for example. A URI resembles this:
secondlife:///app/group/3a1be8d4-01f3-bc1a-2703-442f0cc8f2dd/about

Founded by: shows the name of the person who created the group. Note that the group found might possibly no longer be the owner, or even a member of the group.

Icon and Charter: To the right of the group logo/icon is the group charter. This is generally used to explain, briefly, what the group is about, and give the group rules.

Membership List: the central portion of this tab contains the list of group members. The list has 3 columns, Member, Title (or group tag) and Status (which shows the date of last login). The list may be sorted by clicked the column titles.)

My group settings: Below the list of members, to the left, are your personal settings for this group (assuming you are a member of it. You may show the group in your profile, and opt to receive notices sent to the group or not.

Below this is a drop-down from you you may select your group title. The options here will depend on what role you have in the group. In most cases, there will be only one selection available.

Group Setup: This section is only available if your group role allows you to make changes here. If so, you can flag the group to be listed in search, indicate whether the group is open enrollment or not, and whether there is a cost to join.

The drop-down menu below this permits the group to be classified as “general” or “mature”.

At the bottom of the tab are 3 buttons, as follows:

Chat: Opens the group chat window.

Group Call: Initiate a group voice conference call.

Save: Saves any changes made. This is disabled if you didn't change anything.

Members & Roles

This tab gives access to the membership list and group roles. It is in turn divided into three tabs.

Members

The first section shows the list of group members 2). It is divided into 3 columns: name, donation and status. The donation column indicates whether the member has donated land to the group, and if so, the parcel size in sqm.

Status shows the date of last login, or whether currently online.
The list may be sorted by clicking any of the column headers.

If you click on a name, the middle and lower sections of the tab populate. More on those briefly.

Below the member list are two buttons, which will be activated only if your group role permits.

Invite: Click this is you wish to invite someone to the group. A selector window opens; click on Open Resident Chooser to open the Avatar Picker, type in all or part of the person's name, then click Go. Select from the results and click Select. Then select the role to which you wish to assign the person, and finally Send Invitations.

Eject: If you click this button, you will be able to eject the select person from the group (assuming you have the ability to do so). The person will be notified, as will group owners.

The middle section of this tab lists the available group roles.

The roles assigned to the currently selected group member will have a check mark. If you have the ability, you can change the role(s) for the person here, then save changes with the button at the bottom.

The bottom section allows you to override specific role settings for the selected group member - again, assuming your own group role allows it.

Roles

In this tab, you can view - and if your own role allows, modify - the group roles (titles) and associated abilities.

The top section lists the role names, the title to be displayed as a tag and the count of members in that roles. This list may be sorted by clicking any column titles.

Below this are two buttons:

New Role: Allows a new role to be created.

Note that a group can have at most 10 roles, including the two predefined ones, Owner and Everyone, which cannot be deleted or renamed.

Delete Role: Deletes the role selected in the list above.

Following this is a section where the details of the currently selected role can be edited: the name of the role, the title (which is shown as an avatar tag), an optional description of the role, and a check box,

Reveal members; if enabled, then people in this role will be visible on the groups membership list to anyone viewing the group profile, including non-members.

Underneath this section is a list of avatars who are assigned to the currently selected role.

And lastly, there is the list of abilities associated with the role. Enable or disable as appropriate for the role.

Abilities

This third tab gives an overview of the previous two, from the perspective of abilities.

The top section lists all group abilities. Select one, and the sections below will list which group roles, and which group members, have the corresponding ability.

Notices

The upper section of this tab displays recent notices sent to the group. The list is arranged in columns. The first indicates whether the notice has an attachment, and what kind. Then comes the notice title, followed by the sender and date sent. The list may be sorted by clicking any of the column titles.

The lower part of the tab allows a new notice to be created, if your group role has the ability to send notices. Click the + New Notice button to create a new one. (The circular arrow to the right refreshes the list of notices above.)

When creating a new notice, type in the notice title. This should be short but descriptive. This is followed by the body of the notice itself, which is limited to 512 characters.

If you wish to attach a landmark, object or notecard, you may drag it into the space provided, or click the Inventory button; select the item to attach from the picker window that opens. If you change your mind about the attachment (eg, you selected the wrong one), click the small trashcan icon.

To send the notice, click the Send button. To cancel it, simply click anything else.

Land & L$

This tab gives information on land owned by the group, liabilities due (if any) and so on. (Note: If you wish to see a summary of parcels you own, go to the top menu bar → World → Show Owned Land.)

The list at the top shows each parcel the group owns, the region where the parcel is located, the region type where the parcel is located, and size of the parcel.

Below this is a summary of the total contributions made by group members to the land, and then your own contributions. You can increase the land you contribute by typing in a value - up to the maximum shown underneath.

The Map button displays the select parcel on the World Map.

Then there are three tabs:

Planning

Shows the Linden dollar summary for the group along with the next stipend date.

Linden dollars earned by the group through group fees, plus land and object sales, appear in this summary and are disbursed on the next stipend date to group members who have been assigned a role that receives group dividends.

Details

Shows details of Linden dollars disbursed by the group since the previous stipend date.

Sales

Shows group land or object sales since the last stipend date.

LOCAL TEXTURES, THE REPLACEMENTS FOR TEMORARY UPLOADS

The old temp textures feature was a hack of a bug in the old bake code. It was never a LL feature, and did cause more lag on the region as well as the servers.
Linden Lab has repeatedly warned TPV developers and creators that anything created outside the "normal" code is at risk of being broken at any time. This is a good example of such a case.
The new SSA avatar baking code does not have that bug. You do however have what is known as Local textures, which have a downside and an upside to them.
The downside is that only you can see them. So if you need others to see them you'll need to login on the beta grid where uploads are free, or use one of the many online sites that allow you to upload pictures for others to see. For those that use MOAP you could use that to show others inworld.
The upside is that you can see real time changes to the item with that texture.
Local textures also work for sculpty and specular textures.


Start by creating a prim.
Click on the texture tab, then click on the texture box.
The texture picker will come up and you will see two options under the texture, Inventory and Local. Click on Local and you will see an Add button.
Click on that and a window opens where you can browse to the texture you want, select one and click okay.
you will now see that texture listed on the right. Select it and click okay
Now look at the prim you created.
Unhappy with the way it looks? Open that same texture in whatever editing software you use on your computer and make the changes you want, save the file as the same file, then look at the prim again.

FIRESTORM VIEWER LAG

People always ask "what causes lag?"
Well here is the short answer first, "everything causes lag".

Another common question is "How do I get rid of lag?"
Short answer here is, log out.

Not liking the answers so far are you? Well, let's try the not so short answers.

So what does cause lag? Well sorry to tell you but the short answer still applies. Everything causes lag. However, it is more a matter of how much lag is acceptable to you.

As for what you can do to get rid of lag, that depends on what type of lag it is.
First of all let's talk about the three different types of lag.


LAGMETER 1
You can use the lag meter (found in the Avatar Menu, Avatar Health sub-menu) to help determine which of these three is affecting you the most.

More detailed information is available in the Statistics Bar, which may be accessed by pressing Shift-Ctrl-1.

STATISTICE BAR
Network Lag

This is when you have connectivity issues. There are problems somewhere in the network between your computer and the LL servers.

Symptoms of a poor connection can include (but are not limited to):

Failure of your avatar or textures to rez;
Object information not displaying in hover tips when you mouse over them;
Teleport failure;
Random crashes.

Cumulative packet loss shows a percentage of data that is lost or failing to be delivered. It's in Help menu > About Firestorm, on the bottom line of the first section. It looks like: "Packets Lost: 760/302154 (0.3%)."

Realtime packet loss can be seen in the Statistics Bar, which may be accessed by pressing Shift-Ctrl-1.

Packet Loss: This shows the real-time packet loss. Lower is better, and infrequent spikes may be expected. If it stays high for a long period of time you will experience lower performance.

For some things, looking at real-time packet loss will be useful, like watching for lag when you do something or go somewhere; for checking your overall network performance, cumulative packet loss is more useful.

Also, check Ping Sim. Ideally, this should be under 200 ms. 400 ms is actually what Linden Lab considers too high. This is also known as latency.

If you're experiencing wildly high ping times, ask others nearby if they are as well. If no one is nearby, ask a friend, or ask folks from the group to come by.

If you all see high ping times, it is a server issue, and the region should be restarted.

You can try to mitigate network lag by playing with your bandwidth. Too high or too low (although we do find that too high can be a lot worse than too low) a value will result in network lag.

For information on how to determine your optimal bandwidth, refer to http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_speedtest

We generally recommend the following as MAXIMUMS (Think that is enough stress on maximums?):
Wireless: 500 (This includes a home wireless connection, i.e., a wireless modem/router.
Hardwired DSL: 1000
Anything faster (cable, fibre, etc.) again hardwired: 1500

Aside from the network issues mentioned above, some programs may inhibit or interfere with a good connection.

Some firewall software and anti-virus programs are known to do this. You may want to temporarily disable them and see if the situation improves.

Client-Side

Everything you see has to be drawn by your graphics card. When there is too much to draw, and your computer cannot keep up, you experience client-side lag.

Avatar Render Weight (formerly known as ARC - Avatar Rendering Cost) is part of client-side lag, as the name itself says.

Symptoms of client-side lag include jerky or sluggish movement.

There are many things you can do to reduce this, without having to ask people to adapt to you. Generally speaking, the better you make SL look, the more client side lag you will have.

Reduce your draw distance (do you really need to see 512m away?). One thing that most people do not realize is that if you double your draw distance you are actually rendering up to eight times as much area.

Be sure that Avatar Impostors is enabled (this makes drawing of distant avatars much faster).
Reduce the number of Max Avatars.

Both of these last two options are in Preferences > Graphics > General sub-tab.

Disable Atmospheric Shaders (which serves to drastically reduce how much your computer has to render, as the sky alone is very graphics-intensive);

If need be, inhibit the rendering of other avatars: Advanced Menu > Rendering Types > Avatar (just remember to turn that back on afterwards) or derender them.

Client-side lag is local to you. It is a direct result of how powerful your computer is. It is no one else's fault if your computer cannot handle a specific situation. So if you're in a high-lag setting, adapt temporarily as described above.

It must also be pointed out that client-side lag neither affects nor is affected by things like scripts, at all. It has next to zero impact on a sim's performance.

Particles

Contrary to popular belief, particles do not "lag a sim". Their effect on a sim, on the servers, is in fact close to zero. Particles are almost entirely client-side.
They are rendered on your computer, by your graphics card, and in fact do NOT require a script to keep them going.

They need a script to initiate the effect, yes, but afterwards the script may be removed and the particle effect will keep going forever - until another script is dropped in to turn them off, or the object is taken or deleted.

If you find that particles are "lagging you", stop it yourself, on your own computer. That way others who are less affected may continue to enjoy them.

You can disable particles in a number of ways:

Advanced Menu > Rendering Types > Particles
Preferences > Graphics > Max. particle count - set to 0

Server-Side

Server-side lag is caused by several things, independently. There are two major causes; all others are secondary and negligible. They are, in order of impact on a sim:

Physics. People, even wearing nothing at all, with the minimum possible Avatar Render Weight (1000) and no scripts, will lag a sim.
The sim needs to keep track of where each avatar is, to prevent them walking through one another, floors, walls, etc.

Every time your avatar moves it "collides" with something other than when you are flying or sitting, and each "collision" gets calculated on the server, thus creating more lag.

Sitting down reduces this lag significantly. Your avatar, in fact, becomes linked to the prim you're sitting on.

Scripts. This is common knowledge, compared to the previous point. If you know you're going to a busy event, then remove scripted attachments, as many as possible.

While there is no good reason whatsoever for anyone to be carrying around more than 200 scripts on a human avatar, even when in full RP attire, with combat HUDs, it is important to note that the number of scripts does not tell the whole story.

The amount of time a script uses is more important.

Contrary to popular belief, prims do not lag a sim - or more precisely, their effect on lag is minuscule compared to the two things mentioned above.

Scripted prims cause lag; unscripted ones do not - relatively speaking, of course.

So, if you're going to an event, before you leave for it, check your attachments (hair, shoes, etc) to ensure that they are unscripted. To those running events, it is strongly suggested that you ask attendees to do these things; a badly lagged sim affects everyone at the event.

NOTE: As stated earlier, lag caused by physics (primarily avatar movement) is the number one cause of region lag. If physics lag is bad enough, scripts simply will stop running; avatar movement is considered more important than scipts.

If there are 40 people at an event, and many are moving about, it will be laggy even if none of those people are wearing scripts.

NOTE: Moving away from a scripted prim will not do anything to reduce the "lag" it may be causing you. Scripts all run on the region server, and therefore, they are "global" to the server.

No matter where you are in the region, the effect of that script running - that is, the time taken to run it, and the memory it consumes - will be felt on the entire region.

It must be stated that this material is a simplification; the true situation is far more complex, but the intent was to be brief, simple, yet sufficiently correct.

This info is also available on our wiki page on lag - http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/lag. For more detailed explanations, see the following web pages:

http://analutetia.com/?p=7191
http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/02/16/lag-myths-dispelled/
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Help:Lag
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Reducing_lag
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Statistics_Bar_Guide

FIRESTORM VIEWER REPORTING BUGS

****WHAT IS JIRA

JIRA is a web-based project tracker. It is our ticketing system for bug reports, improvement requests, new feature requests and support requests.

It gets its name from the Japanese movie monster Gojira (pronounced go-jee-ra), which we western saps pronounce Godzilla. If you want to know more, see their FAQ.
http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA044/JIRA+FAQ

Our JIRA is divided up into several projects, three of which are important to us:
PHOE - Phoenix Viewer
FIRE - Firestorm Viewer
SUP - Support issues

The first two are used primarily for bug reports and feature or improvement requests.

The third is semi-private in that only you and the Phoneix team can see your issues. This is a dilemma since anyone else having the same issue can't benefit directly from solutions that may be provided on yours.

But at the same time, it allows you to add more personal information that you might not want to share with the rest of the world.

Each project contains one or more issues. An issue is a single topic. The issue number is the project abbreviation and a sequential number, like FIRE-4034.

Each issue contains all the information related to it, such as the reporter's system environment, steps to reproduce a failure event, attached files, even patches and possible solutions.

****LOOKING AROUND

When you launch JIRA you'll be taken to the system dashboard. It shows an activity stream with some of the recent comments made in the PHOE or FIRE projects, and a place to log in.

The page header is the same on every page in the JIRA. Let's look at what you will see, starting at the top:

Log In: This takes you to a log in page. When logged in, this shows your user name and links to your profile.

The pull-down lists various help documents. When logged in, also lists profile and log out links.

Quick Search: Pretty much self-explanatory. Enter search criteria and all the matching issues are displayed.

Along the red menu line:

Dashboard: Takes you to the system dashboard. When logged in, takes you to your personal dashboard.

The pull-down shows all available dashboards.

Projects: Takes you to the Browse Projects page initially. If you choose a project, then this button returns you there.

The Pull down shows the current project, any recent projects chosen, and a link to the Browse Projects page.

Issues: Takes you to the Issue Navigator, where you can search for issues and create saveable search filters.

The pull-down shows all your saved filters, as well as links to the filter manager and Issue Navigator.

Create Issue: Shows only when logged in, and allows you to create a new issue.

****GOING DEEPER

So there are two basic reasons to access JIRA: To search for issues and to create an issue.

Searching for an issue is pretty easy. You can enter search terms into the Quick Search field, then press Enter. This takes you to the Issue Navigator, and it shows all the results sorted by relevance.

You can also enter an issue number, like FIRE-4034, and it will display just that one issue.

So let's see if we can't find something. I'm sure at least one of you has experienced a Search window that's blank. So let's look for that. In Quick Search, enter the words SEARCH BLANK (caps aren't needed).

Currently, that brings several hundred issues. Note that this doesn't mean much since the words search and/or blank can show up literally anywhere.

But the most relevant will show up at the top, and I see that FIRE-11 is up there, and the summary says

"Search Box". Relevant to a blank search window? Probably. Let's find out.

The red text is a link to the issue. So click on either FIRE-11 or "Search Box" and you'll be shown that one issue.

OK, so we see all the information about this issue. Some is missing, and that's ok. The missing details were likely not important.

But we see that the user has problems with the search window, our developer couldn't reproduce the problem.

Now, when we say this, we're not trying to make you feel bad or anything. What we're trying to say is that the problem is likely not in the viewer, but exists somewhere else.

And our JIRA Queen, Whirly, has had more contact with users than our developers and has seen the problem before. She provided a possible solution.

We don't know if the solution worked for this user, but if I had this problem, then I would follow what Whirly said and check my own settings and PC.

Firestorm currently doesn't have a feature many people like, OTR (off the record) IM encryption. If you want to see how people asked to have it added, what should you do?
Go to Quick Search and enter OTR, then press Enter.

And there are about 11 issues currently that have one or both of those words somewhere.

Looking in the status column, we see several that are closed. You can still view these, and they may be linked to an open one that will be more helpful.

But let's just play with the filter to see how to use it for times when there might be far more results to sift through than this.

Along the left side you'll see some search filters. Scroll down a bit until you find Issue Attributes, then click that. Now a little further down is Status.

This is an inclusive filter, so only what you choose will be shown. And we want to see everything except Closed.

To do that, click Open inside the Status selector, then hold Ctrl and click the others (but not Any), but not Closed.

Now scroll to the window to the top or bottom and click on the Search button in the upper or lower left.

That should provide an idea of how to use a search filter. The one we're after is the most relevant, FIRE-1349. Click that one.

This has been assigned to a developer, so it's the one to watch. It has related issues linked to it, so we can keep track of all the other related issues. The issues that are struck out are closed.

Someone already asked for OTR. If you want to add your voice to this request, look in the upper right to find the People section. Click Vote and Watch.

Vote: Adds you as a supporter of this issue. You can click it again to un-vote. And you can't vote for your own issues.

Watch: This is also considered a vote, but it will send you an email whenever this issue gets a change. A change can be modification to the issue itself or comments added. Click again to un-watch.

And you'll want to add your own comment, but please be respectful.

We're at the point now where you need a jira account. You can't vote, watch, comment or create your own issue without an account.

****CREATE AN ACCOUNT

For those of you who already have an account, this is your coffee break.
For the rest of us: Go to the red menu and click Dashboards.

On the right side, in the login section, click on the Sign Up link.

Enter the following information:

- Username: Any username you wish. Your SL username would work, like mister.acacia (no spaces please)

- Password: I am a data security professional by trade, but I'll keep my rant short: your password should be unique and strong, 8 characters or more, not associated with you, and changed regularly.

- Confirm Password: Type your password in again.

- Full Name: Here we would really like to have your SL name. You might be very interesting in RL, but we need your SL name so we can contact you inworld if necessary

- Email: An address to which JIRA emails can be sent.
Click the Sign Up button. JIRA will complain if what you entered needs adjusting. Otherwise, you're all set.

OK, coffee break is over.

****CREATE AN ISSUE

Creating an issue is very easy, once you've logged in. On the right side of the red menu is the Create Issue link. If you don't see that, click Login at the top, or enter your credentials in the Login Section.

Clicking Create Issue pops up a little window asking for the Project and Issue Type you wish to create. Note that the issue type changes depending on the project.

Your choices are:
FIRE or PHOE
- Bug
- New Feature
- Task
- Improvement
- Epic
- Story
- Support Request
- Deprecated
- Translation
- Documentation
SUP
- Support Request

For the most part, you're only going to need to use Bug, New Feature, Improvement or Support Request. Note that these can be changed, so if you create a Bug issue and just tell a story, then it will be changed to Story.

Once you've picked a project and issue type, click Create. From here, the data entry screen is identical no matter the issue type, so let's look at the fields:

Summary - This is where you put a brief title of the issue. Don't add all your information here, just a few words to describe the issue.

Priority - This is set by default to Major, change it as necessary. Please be honest about this, if you have a trivial bug that really doesn't hamper your SL experience, don't call it a blocker.

SL Avatar Name - Your SL name, of course.

Patch Attached - If you are contributing a patch, then please check this box.

Reported In - Choose which viewer you're using. It can be different than the one that has the issue.

Affects Version/s - This is where you want to identify which viewer is directly affected. For mesh issues, obviously, you don't want to select a non-mesh viewer.

Environment - This one is very important for SUP issues and bug reports. This can come from any viewer that opens and shows you a log on screen. If you can get to Help > About, you can get your system info. Paste it here.

Description - Here is where you want to add details about the issue. If you can reproduce the issue by following some sequence, then document that sequence here.

If your issue affects only one of your avatars, note that as well. Everything you can think of that will help us understand the issue clearly should be added here.

Attachment - If you have a patch, or if your problem can be illustrated by a screenshot, select it here. More than one can be added. If your viewer is acting up, attach your viewer logs here.

Please try not to add just a picture and expect it to tell us the whole story. What you perceive as wrong may be different than what we perceive. So describe the issue and use the picture to help.
Labels - Use this to add searchable labels to the issue. Don't go overboard with this. If it has nothing to do with voice, for example, don't add a voice label.

Finally, and we're not going to do it, you would click the Create button, and your issue would be created. You would be shown the issue number, and you will get emails when the issue is changed or updated.

And I have a bit of a rant about issues. Too often someone will open an issue, we will either offer some help or ask for additional information. But the person never responds and we end up closing the issue as incomplete.

Was the user helped? I don't know.
So if you create an issue, please check it when you get an email. Add your comment, follow the steps we suggest and let us know the result, or add the information we requested.
And if you don't get an email, please check anyway in case there was an email snafu. We're happy to help with that, too.