Crashing During Install or Startup
General
Firestorm Logs out During Login
Recent versions of Firestorm (4.5.1 and later) do NOT have the problem described below.
When you receive notifications, unless you dismiss them, they accumulate for later reading, in the small envelope icon on the lower right of the screen. Over time, they will grow in number. If you log out, these unread notifications are saved for when you next log in. If there are too many of them, processing them during next log in can cause a log in time out and you will be disconnected. The solution here is to delete the file with the saved notifications.
Locate your Firestorm settings folder. If you do not see this folder, you may need to show hidden folders.
On XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Application Data\Firestorm
or use the environment variable %APPDATA%)
On Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Firestorm
(or use the environment variable %APPDATA%)
On a Mac: /Users/[YOUR USERNAME]/Library/Application Support/Firestorm
On Linux: ~/.firestorm
In this folder, open each folder which has the name of your SL account(s) and inside that, delete the file called open_notifications.xml - this will result in all past, unread notifications being lost.
If this fixes you then please make a habit of closing all notifications before you log out.
Firestorm "Locks Up" on "Initializing VFS"
If this occurs, chance are good that the inventory cache is corrupt. Deleting it should solve the problem.
Locate your cache folder. You will probably need to do this manually, if you are unable to log in. Use a file manager (like Windows Explorer for Windows system, Dolphin, or some such) to locate the cache folder. In its default location, the cache folder is hidden on most OSs. To find it, you will need to show hidden folders. Default cache locations are:
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Firestorm
Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Firestorm
Mac: ~/Library/Caches/Firestorm
linux: ~/.firestorm/cache
In this folder, locate the files named data.db2.x.* and index.db2.x.* (where * is a digit: 0, 1, 2, etc; you may have more than one of each type of file)
Delete all files that match these two names.
Log back into SL, to a quiet region (try Hippo Hollow, Aich or Hatton). Allow your inventory to repopulate fully.
Windows only: If the above doesn't work, then click the speaker icon in the system tray, then touch the volume slider, just enough to change the volume slightly. It may be that the Windows sound system has stalled; this should “give it a kick”.
If the above fails, then try doing a full wipe of all settings.
Login Crash with a Private Pool Error
Ref. FIRE-12339
This is almost always caused by the MemoryPrivatePoolEnabled being set to TRUE. It should never be set to TRUE. But before you try to fix this, we could really use a copy of your crash logs to help us work on a fix. See here for steps to collect your crash logs, then attach those logs to FIRE-12339.
Then, do the following:
Make sure hidden files/folders are set to show - see here for steps.
Browse to your user_settings folder. This is located at -
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings [USERNAME] \Application Data\Firestorm\user_settings
Windows Vista, 7, or 8, 8.1, and 10: C:\Users [USERNAME] \AppData\Roaming\Firestorm\user_settings
Mac: User/Library/Application Support/Firestorm/user_settings
Linux: ~/.firestorm/user_settings
In the user_settings folder, find the file named “settings.xml”
Open settings.xml in a text editor - For Windows, Notepad++ is ideal for this
Search settings.xml for the term MemoryPrivatePoolEnabled
You will see a block of text like so:
Near the bottom there, change the “<boolean>1</boolean>” line just above </map> to “<boolean>0</boolean>”
Save changes to settings.xml and edit the text editor.
Login.
Profit.
Other Crash Situations
Issues outside of Firestorm can, and often do, result in viewer crashes….
Make sure your file system is not corrupt by running chkdsk or equivalent for your OS.
On Windows, ensure that your registry isn't messed up by running CCleaner or similar.
Reboot your PC and moder/router.
Ensure that video drivers are current, as well as your OS.
Do a Reinstall of Firestorm.
By Operating System
Windows Specific
If the installer does not run at all, try the following steps (this solution was described for Vista SP1; it has not been confirmed for other Windows versions):
Right click the installer .exe
Click Properties
On the bottom of the general tab is a message “This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer”
Click Unblock
Installer should run.
You may have corrupt registry information; refer to this page. This is especially common for those rolling back from Win10 to an older version of Windows.
If you crash at startup with an error like: “failed to initialise properly code (0x0150002)”, or you get an error that the “side-by-side” configuration is incorrect, or “Firestorm failed to start because the application configuration was incorrect. Reinstalling the application may correct the problem”, please download this and install it, as your system is likely incompatible with the Visual Studio C++ 2005 SDK DLLs: AppFix.exe
Open the Firestorm install folder and search for any files named .config - delete any you find.
Note that some anti-virus software will result in errors during installation; more information is here.
If you are using an ATI (AMD) graphics card, then please refer here for known problems with these cards.
For nVidia issues, plese refer to this page.
Windows 10
If you are using Windows 10, and have an Intel 2000/3000 or older graphics card, please refer to this page if you cannot start Firestorm without crashing.
Windows Vista or Windows 7
If you crash during login, then try setting Firestorm to XP compatibility:
Locate your desktop shortcut for Firestorm
Right click on the icon and select Properties
Select the Compatibility tab
Check the “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and select Windows XP from the drop down
Click Apply.
If you get a User Account Control security popup, then please see this page.
linux-specific
If you have just installed Firestorm on a linux system and it will not start, it is highly likely that you are missing some required libraries. You need to verify if this is the case.
You need to open Terminal and cd to the Firestorm install directory. If you are unsure how to locate it, use your linux file manager to find it first; it will help you locate the install directory. Useful shorcuts:
~/ - is your home directory
~/Desktop - is your desktop directory
so for example, from terminal, you would do something like this:
Assuming that Firestorm is installed in the directory called Firestorm, in your home.
Once there, copy the following into Terminal:
This will spit out a long list of libraries. Check to see if any are marked as “not found”. If so, you will need to install these with your package manager.
See this page for documentation on Firestorm 4.7.1 (45325) and earlier.