Region performance issues can seem quite mysterious! They can be difficult to diagnose, but we have some basics here for any time you encounter degraded performance in your region and would like to figure out why!
Before beginning any region performance evaluations, we recommend a region restart. This refreshes everything, which will often improve performance on it's own. Additionally, it will provide a clean slate and will give you the most accurate idea of any issues that exist regularly on the region. Once the region has been restarted, please allow around 30 minutes for the region to come online fully before beginning your evaluation.
Statistics Bar
The Statistics Bar is available to anyone within the viewer, and can give an overview of what is happening on a region. You can open the Statistics bar by typing in Ctrl+Shift+1, or Advanced > Performance Tools > Statistics Bar. (If the Advanced option is not available in your menu, you can make it available through Me > Preferences > Advanced > Show Advanced Menu).
For more information on the information in the Statistics Bar, please check out our Knowledge Base article Statistics bar guide.
Mainland Region Performance Tools
Mainland has fewer tools available to them in terms of evaluating a region's performance. On Mainland, you can find information about the scripts on your parcel via Script Info. This is located in World > About Land (or right click the land and select About Land). The Script Info button will be at the bottom right of the About Land window's General tab.
Script Info
This window will show all of the scripted objects on your parcel.
- Size (kb): This is the memory for the individual item. While not fool proof, there is some connection between items that have high memory and high script time. Otherwise, items with high memory may cause issues on a region. If the memory of an item is considered "high" - this is subjective depending on the item and will require your best judgement. Items with a memory over 5000 will certainly want to be looked at.
- Object Name: This is the name of the individual object.
- Object Owner: This is the owner of the object.
- Location: This is the coordinate location of the object.
- URLs: How many URLs are being used by the object.
Should you wish to return or locate an object that you see in this list, both options are available to you in the bottom right corner of the window. Highlighting the object will create a red and blue beacon emanating from the object's location. The red portion will be above the object itself, and the blue portion will be below the object. The object should exist where they meet. To remove the beacon, click the red arrow that points at the beacon itself.
If these tools are not able to help you to diagnose your region performance problem, please do not hesitate to Contact Support! Please note: Most region performance evaluations take time. As such, you are welcome in chat to discuss the issue but you may expect to submit a support ticket on the issue.
Private Region Performance Tools
Private regions have more tools available for region performance evaluations.
Please note: These tools are available to the Estate Owner and Estate Managers only.
Top Scripts
Top Scripts is found in World > Region/Estate > Debug Tab > Get Top Scripts button. This is just a snapshot of the highest scripts in the region, not a list of all scripts. It will not match the Active Scripts count that you see in the Statistics window.
Once you bring up Top Scripts click the Time button to sort from highest to lowest. At the top of the page you will see a title that says the number of scripts taking a total of a number of ms. This is important because you can compare this to the Active Scripts and Script Time values in the Statistics Bar to see the scope of your snapshot. You can click Show Beacon to create a beacon to any object you select, and if you open your Map (Ctrl+M) you can click Teleport to be taken right to it.
The amount of time taken by a scripted object will vary between items, and what is an acceptable time will need to be judged from object to object as well. Generally speaking, any item nearing or exceeding 1.0 ms in script time will want to be reviewed.
You can also sort via the Memory (KB) column (representing file size). This will show the amount of memory an item is using. This memory can include animations, which can add to the total memory significantly without necessarily affecting how long it takes to run the script. Generally, though, the Mem column indicates how complex the scripts within an object are, much the same way a longer song or video might be a larger file. The larger the memory required to run the scripted object, the longer it takes to complete.
Regions will allocate a portion of their resources to running scripts, and if the region is running short on resources to calculate higher priority components like physics or avatar calculations, scripts may run more slowly as a result. An example of this would be the delay between clicking on a door and the door swinging open; if the region is burdened and lacking in resources due to high usage, the door may take an extra second or two to swing open upon clicking.
The columns in the Top Scripts window are:
- Time: The individual script time used by the object.
- Name: The name of the object the script in it.
- Owner: The owner of the object.
- Location: The coordinates to the object.
- Parcel: The name of the parcel the object is in.
- Date: When the object was rezzed in the parcel. The older the object the less likely the object is to be a recent cause of lag but keep in mind if the score is significant.
- URLs: How many URLs are being used by the object.
- Memory (KB): The amount of memory in KB use to run scripts compiled, as described above.
Note: You will often see avatars at the top of your Top Scripts window. They don’t actually count toward Script time in the Statistics Bar totals — they count toward Agent time. The server budgets separate amounts of memory to run them, and will generally prioritizing agents over objects in a region. However, they all use the same pool of resources. This is one reason why a region with a lot of avatars in it can have objects that are slow to respond.
Top Colliders
Top Colliders is found also in World > Region/Estate > Debug Tab > Get Top Colliders button. The title bar indicator says the number of objects experiencing many potential collisions. These will be items that are physically interacting with one another, such as physical fish bonking into the glass of an aquarium or coconuts falling from palm trees. You will want to review these items if you find you have a high Physics FPS or Physics Time.
It's not unusual to see avatars and the floor they're standing on appear on this list, but they're rarely the cause of performance problems; typically, avatars show up on Top Colliders when the region is low on resources for other reasons, and it's taking the simulator program longer to calculate the collisions for the floor than usual.
Once you bring up Top Colliders click the Score button to sort from highest to lowest. You can click Show Beacon to create a beacon to any object you select and if you open your Map (Ctrl+M) you can click Teleport to be taken right to it.
The score of an object will depend on how many potential collisions are happening with the object. Any item with a score that is significantly higher than the others may be having issues, such as a fish that swims getting stuck bouncing between two rocks. These will want to be investigated.
- Score: The amount of physics time used by the object.
- Name: The name of the object.
- Owner: The coordinates to the object.
- Parcel: The name of the parcel the object is in.
- Date: When the object was rezzed in the parcel. The older the object the less likely the object is to be a recent cause of lag but keep in mind if the score is significant.
If these tools are not able to help you to diagnose your region performance problem, please do not hesitate to Contact Support! Please note: Most region performance evaluations take time. As such, you are welcome in chat to discuss the issue but you may expect to submit a support ticket on the issue.
Common Errors & Their Solutions
| Error Message | Explanation | Solution |
Unable to create item that has caused problems on this region |
If this value reaches about 920 MB for a full region or 230 MB for a homestead or openspace region, the physics engine will no longer be able to calculate boundaries properly, and no objects will be rezzed. Often times this is due to terraforming items, such as land levellers, or scene rezzers which can take up a very large amount of physics memory very quickly. | Restart this region. If a restart does not resolve this issue, please Contact Support with the time, date, location, and name of object(s) resulting in this error message. |
| Failure to grant capabilities (upon attempting to teleport) | This is a technical issue that will require assistance by an agent. | Submit a support ticket under the type Land & Region > Offline Region. Please note that, as this requires the assistance of an agent, if you receive this error outside of Support Hours (6 AM SLT to 2 PM SLT), we will assist you as quickly as possible when Support Hours reopen. If you are the region owner, you can use the web based console to restart your region (which may temporarily alleviate the problem). |
Contacting Support
If these tools listed above are not sufficient in helping you to diagnose your region performance problem, please do not hesitate to Contact Support!
- Submit a Support Ticket: Click Submit A Ticket on the top right of your screen. We will be with you as quickly as possible! This options is available 24/7 for any account type.
- Come visit us in Live Chat: This options is available for Premium and Premium Plus members only. If it is available to you, you can open a chat via the grey chat bar at the bottom right of your screen. Chat is limited to Support Hours between 6 AM SLT and 2 PM SLT, seven days a week. If you find chat is unavailable when it normally would be, please check our Status Blog for any ongoing maintenance or unavailability in Live Chat.
Please note: Most region performance evaluations take time. As such, you are welcome in chat to discuss the issue but you may expect to submit a support ticket on the issue.