Question 1: I Can Not Watch a Movie in Second Life.Do I Have a Firewall Problem?

Trouble Shooting

Skye Gears

June 23, 2009

Question 1: I can not watch a movie in Second Life.Do I have a firewall problem?

If you can not watch a movie in Second Life, you can go through the below check list to test whether you have a firewall problem or not.

To test without using the Second Life Viewer, opena Quick Time Player for these tests byopening these three URLs below and test whether you can see the different movie clips:

Open the Quick Time Player and the menu item File/Open URL:

1.Open the http media URLbelow in a web browser and hit OK. Make sure there is no space at the end of the URL.

Can you see the clip? If so, congratulations, you can get through thestandard TCP port 80 for HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) connections.

2. Check your connectivity to AIAI Media Server in HTTP modelby testing this URL below in your web browser:

Can you see the clip? If so, congratulations, you can get through the standard TCPport 80 for HTTP connection and can also reach the AIAI Media Server.

3. Check the connectivity to AIAI Media Server where port 554 is used for real time media streaming. The TCPPort 554 is a standard port used for RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) connections and for Real Time Player. Open the below URL in your web browser:

Can you see the clip? If not, then your port 554 is not opened.

4. Also test whether real time streaming works on your machine via a Real Time Player, as Real Time Player is used within SL for movie streaming. Open your Quick Time Player. Open the menu item“File > Open URL”, and copy the URL below and paste it onto the “Open URL” window. Click ok to see this clip.

rtsp://media.aiai.ed.ac.uk:554/vue.sdp

Can you see the clip? If not, your port 554 is not opened or something is wrong with your Quick Time Player – check, if it is up to date.

If you can see all of the above clips, then your Quick Time Player is working properly and itis probably not a firewall problem that prevents you from watching a movie in SL.

For more information, see:

For additional information on ports, see:

5. If you have tried everything and still not be able to get it going. It may be useful to use a different machine that is located in a different building, e.g. another office building or your homw machine where there is less security measures.

Question 2: I can not use alt+left click to enable“mouselook”, what can I do to get it back?

You may have lost some of your settings in SL. Use control+Alt+D to open the Advanced menu at the top of your screen (SL viewer). Tickmouse smoothing (or un-tick it, just to make it different from its previous setting). This should reset your mouse look keys. Try again to see if it works now. You can restore you camera smoothing option after the test.

If this does not resolve your problem, try to download a newer version of the SL from the web site below: and this problem should be resolved. This is a known bug in SL, but should be resolved now from version 1.23 onwards.

See SL bug report for more info:

Question 3: I do not have a firewall problem, but I can not see a movie, why?

First, make sure that you have the most up-to-date Quick Time Player.

Second, make sure that when you hover your mouse over the “camera” icon at the bottom of your screen you can see a text description says “There is a movie to play here”. This indicates that your system recognises that there is a movie to be played for you.

Third, click on the small triangle button to play the movie. If you do not see the small triangle button, click the square icon to stop the movie and then click the small triangle button to play the movie again.

If you still can not see the movie, use a different movie theatre that plays the same movie (that is provided in a different region in SL). Sometimes, an update/upgrade of the underlying simulator that rendersa region in Second Life may cause some users to have problems.

Question 4: How do I report a bug in SL?

Use your SL account to participate the SL JIRA area. See guidance below:

Question 5: How do I enable voice chat?

1. run Second Life.
2. enable voice chat in SL. To do this,
1.Make sure that you have set up the audio properly outside of SL, i.e. using a working headset
with microphone. (If you only have a speaker, you can still set up voice chat so that you can

hear other people’s conversation, but you can not speak. If you have an open speaker and a

separate microphone, you can also set up the voice chat, but you may create voice

feedback/noise for other participants, except for yourself. It is therefore best avoided.)
2.Make sure that Skype (VoIP Internet phone) is NOT running. If so, it needs to be closed.
3.Go to Edit > Preferences > Voice Chat and un-tick the "Enable Voice" box and then tick it
again (so to reset). Tick the “hear voice chat from avatar position” option. Un-tick “use
Push-to-Talk in toggle mode”. Un-tick “Only accept voice calls from people on My Friends
list”. Click on “Apply” and then “OK” to close the menu.
4.There should now be a little white dot on top of your avatar’s head. If so, congratulations, you

have just activated your voice chat facility in SL.

Question 6: How do I know I have voice chat connected?

Voice chat is connected when you first log on to SL or when you enter a new region. Open you local chat window, and look for the two lines of “connecting to in-world Voice Chat” and “Connected”. See Figure 1 below where these two lines are firstly appeared when log on to SL.

If you can indeed see these two lines, it means that you are connected with voice chat and are able to speak through your microphone and hear other people’s conversation, if you have microphone and headset set up properly.

Figure 1: a sample Local Chat window indicating Voice Chat facility