Viewer login snapshot

From Second Life Wiki

Revision as of 23:06, 2 November 2009

The Viewer login snapshot is the picture you see when you're logging into Second Life and the progress bar is loading. It is not a live snapshot of an inworld scene, but one saved from a previous session.

This is not the same as the similarly-named but different login/splash screen which appears before logging in.

When does the login snapshot update?

There are two login snapshots. One updates whenever you quit the Second Life Viewer, the other updates when you set a new home location.

For example, say you teleport to a tropical beach and log off there. The next time you login to that last location, you'll see a snapshot of the beach looking as it did before you logged off. But, if you choose to login at your home location or force your login location to be somewhere else, you'll see the last home snapshot you saved.

In another example, say your Start Location is set to My Home but your home location changed to another piece of land. So you teleport there, then use World > Set Home to Here. When you do that, the login snapshot for My Home changes, and whenever you login to My Home, you'll see this until you update it again.

How do I change my Start Location?

1. Go to Edit > Preferences and click General tab.
2. Next to Start Location, select My Home or My Last Location.

This controls what snapshot you see at login, provided you don't override it.

How do I delete or disable my login snapshots?

Old login snapshots aren't archived — updating one will replace the previous version. If you're concerned about your privacy or just want to have more control:

1. Navigate to your equivalent of this directory:
   • Windows - C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\
   • Mac - In the Finder, use Go > Go to Folder and paste in: ~/Library/Application Support/SecondLife/
2. Open the username folder, like "torley_linden".
3. Look for "screen_home.bmp" (for My Home) and "screen_last.bmp" (for My Last Location). You can delete these, or if you know what you're doing, replace them with another image with the same name. Keep in mind unless you lock the files, the aforementioned conditions can overwrite them.

To disable your login snapshot, enable the unsupported Advanced menu, then:

1. Go to Advanced > Debug Settings.
2. Enter "UseStartScreen".
3. Change the dropdown to FALSE.