Cool VL Viewer forum

Normally, no, no such problems: it's like if the viewer could not even read the UI textures from the hard drive (I saw at least two such warnings in your last SecondLife.log file)...

Yes, more than 2 in my last log.

All pointing to the same folder C:\Program Files\Snowglobe\skins\default\textures\

Which may, or may not, (I think) be stored on the same area of the disk?

If they are, then that could be the issue, but does SL not call for anything from any other folder in any other folder, and why would this issue only sometimes cause a crash?

And I'm using the silver skin, not the default one....

It depends on how fragmented your file system is.

The viewer needs to access its own UI files, and here, it can't...

Because the viewer is not coded to work under abnormal conditions (such as when UI files are missing or corrupted). This is both because of laziness and bad coding practice from LL's part, and also because it sometimes just doesn't make sense to try and correct an uncorrectable error (thus the use of the assert directives here and there in the code, to voluntarily abort (crash) the viewer whenever such conditions are met).

The Silver skin still uses most of the default skin UI elements (only the colours and a few floaters and icons differ).

Both a Western Digital Disk Diagnostics Extended test and a Windows Disk check report no problems with the disk.

My point regarding the log and the crashing is that my last session in SL lasted over 2 hours duration and generated multiple of these error messages but without causing a crash. My question is, if these files are so crucial to the running of the Viewer, then why, given that this error appeared multiple times in the log for a non-crashed session, did the Viewer not crash the first time it encountered a file it couldn't open?

Please don't misunderstand me here - I'm not criticising you or your Viewer, which I think is great. It just seems a bit random to me that the Viewer only crashes sometimes when this error is encountered, and not others. If it was so crucial that the default skin textures were loaded and if not, then the Viewer crashes, then surely the first time it happened the Viewer would crash?

As I've said before, I had no crashes for over a year with 1.23. Since changing to the Snowglobe + 1.25 I've experienced these major issues which, apparently, aren't connected to each other (corrupted textures inworld AND a bad hard disk). That seems to me to be a huge huge co-incidence.

I'll revert to the previous version that I was using I think, and see what happens.

Thanks again for your help.

Nicola

Ok, so I just uninstalled everything SL related and re-installed on a totally separate HDD (NB: not just a separate partiion).

In the log (multiple times):

WARNING: LLTextureCacheRemoteWorker::doRead: Error reading file from local cache: I:\Snowglobe\skins\default\textures\cdd9a9fc-6d0b-f90d-8416-c72b6019bca8.j2c Bytes: 129703 Offset: 32768 / 129703

So, since I installed Snowglobe + Cool Viewer 1.25 TWO separate hard drives have started failing?

I don't think that this is the answer.

I've just installed the same as I have (Snowglobe 1.42 from your link) plus today's Cool VL Viewer on a friend's laptop.
Different operating system in this case (I'm on XP, he's on Vista) totally different hardware.

Ran the Viewer. Logged in as nornal. Made no changes to any Preferences,
Closed the Viewer and looked at the log:

Multiple entries like this:

WARNING: LLTextureCacheRemoteWorker::doRead: Error reading file from local cache: C:\Program Files\Snowglobe\skins\default\textures\fb2ae204-3fd1-df33-594f-c9f882830e66.j2c Bytes: 130740 Offset: 32768 / 130740

So, this is how I see it atm:

1. Three separate hard drives on 2 different sytems have failed at the same time OR
2. This log message has nothing to do with the crashes OR
3. The download files are corrupted.

I shall go ahead and try 1.23 etc...

I understand that the viewer didn't crash on the laptop... Which would confirm that the problem is with your other computer... It could be a video driver incompatibility (try grabbing the latest Nvidia driver and install it), since the raw image decoding failure (as reported in your first posted log on this forum) could also be related with this kind of issue...

Most likely: although I have no such messages under Linux, I can see them in an emulated (VirtualBox) Windows XP session. You can safely ignore them (the viewer doesn't crash in my Windows XP session).

Thanks Henri.
I'm using the latest NVidia drivers I think (260.99)
I spoke to my flatmate's bf about the graphics driver issue (we share the PC).
He told me that he had installed nHancer on the PC (something to do with another game that needed it).

Could this be related?

Nicola

Edit: Uninstalled nHancer and restarted. Crashed again. I'm going to revert to 1.23 and see if the same happens.

I don't know what nHancer is, but anything that tweaks the graphic driver is probably a bad idea: the viewer must be left to decide what graphic settings the video card is to use. This kind of issue also exists with ATI windows drivers and their "AI" mode, which forces settings the viewer doesn't want or like...

Yes, apparently nHancer does tweak the graphics drivers.
However, it's now been removed and still the crashing....