scripts knocking you offline

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Eddie,

I'm not aware of a means by which a script can crash the viewer directly. Scripts run on the SL servers. It is possible for scripts to rez things that can place a significant load on the graphics processor in your computer, sometimes causing it to crash. It's generally obvious when that happens because the scene fills with the junk being rezzed and elicits angry responses from everybody in range.

Such methods will not damage your computer, which should (if it was properly designed) have internal failsafe mechanisms to prevent overheating. So this is more a matter of annoyance than peril to your computer. The sim owner should be able to eject/block griefers from the sim. You made no mention of the sim owner expressing outrage over anything, so I'm wondering if your friend's viewer is somehow crashing because of some non-nefarious interaction on the sim.

I don't know of any glitches in the viewer that might cause this, but someone else might come along with a theory to explain your friend's problem.

Good luck!

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Eddie,

I'm not aware of a means by which a script can crash the viewer directly. Scripts run on the SL servers. It is possible for scripts to rez things that can place a significant load on the graphics processor in your computer, sometimes causing it to crash. It's generally obvious when that happens because the scene fills with the junk being rezzed and elicits angry responses from everybody in range.

Such methods will not damage your computer, which should (if it was properly designed) have internal failsafe mechanisms to prevent overheating. So this is more a matter of annoyance than peril to your computer. The sim owner should be able to eject/block griefers from the sim. You made no mention of the sim owner expressing outrage over anything, so I'm wondering if your friend's viewer is somehow crashing because of some non-nefarious interaction on the sim.

I don't know of any glitches in the viewer that might cause this, but someone else might come along with a theory to explain your friend's problem.

Good luck!

[Marigold Devin]

Welcome to Second Life Answers, Eddie

I agree with Maddie on this. It sounds to me like your friend's graphics card might be being super-sensitive.

Does Gemma also find everything is very slow for her if you go to busy sims, or sims where there is much colour and lots of different textures, or where lots of scripts are running simultaneously?

Gemma possibly needs to let us know her computer's specifications to see if we can shed more light on whether or not her graphics card is the issue.  Meantime, she should ensure her graphics card has latest drivers installed and that her internet connection is super-stable (ie not relying on wireless connection).

 

[Lindal Kidd]

As the others have said, a "graphics crasher" can cause a crash of SL, or even of your computer, but is unlikely to cause permanent damage.  However, it's probably not necessary to worry about it....because you can crash for a great many other reasons than from an actual malicious attack.

One of the most common reasons fro a crash is an underpowered computer.  A lot of computers these days are made with "integrated graphics", rather than a dedicated, separate graphics card.  If your friend's computer uses any form of the "Intel HD xxxx" graphics, she's using a computer that is not really up to running Second Life.

[Rolig Loon]

Scripts can certainly make a sim slow to a crawl, although not by themselves.  A sim's servers prioritize the time that they spend on various tasks (keeping track of avatars, communicating, managing lighting, etc.), and scripts are at the bottom of the list.  Scripts only the time that's left over after everything else is taken care of.  Scripts can't push other tasks out of the way to make them slow down.  However, a script can do things that indirectly put a big load on the servers.  Rezzing objects, for example, or moving physical objects like vehicles.  If overdone, those things can make a lot of lag and even crash a sim. They can't hurt your computer, though.  You'll just crash along with the sim and then have to relog.

Things like that don't happen often, though.  It takes a lot of work to overload a sim.  Most of the time when you crash, you're crashing by yourself.  If you crash hard enough that it actually crashes your computer, there's usually something else going on.  Suspect overheating, for one thing.  Your computer normally runs hot when you're in SL.  Everyone's does.  If you haven't been keeping it dust-free inside, though, or if its fans aren't spinning fast enough to get rid of the heat, or if you simply have a wimpy graphic card that wasn't meant to handle the sort of load that SL throws it, it can overheat.  Normally, computers are smart enough to just shut down a program when that happens, but if there's too much heat yours could just shut everything down to keep from burning up.

[A3123]

Yes, it is possible. File a report.