Clearing the cache

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Cache articles in the Old Knowledge Base

• Clearing the cache
• Moving the cache
• False cache virus alerts
• Norton AntiVirus and the cache

Second Life uses a cache, which is space on your hard drive used for quicker retrieval of inworld content after it's downloaded. Examples of cached data includes object info, textures, and Inventory item names. Similar in concept to a web browser's cache, clearing the Second Life cache is a "refresh" which can help with various problems. While not a cure-all, it is a highly-recommended first step.

A common problem in Second Life is perceived inventory loss, which is a good term for when you search your inventory for something you recall being there recently, but it doesn't show up. When you experience high packet loss "lag", the cache can be corrupted, meaning that when Second Life goes to look something up that actually is on our servers, it doesn't find it locally on your computer's cached inventory.

Clearing the Cache from Inside Second Life

From experience, a simple click of the Clear Cache button can help show your "missing" stuff again. Select Edit > Preferences > Network and you'll see it looks similar to this:

Click Clear and restart Second Life. Then, search again for your "missing" inventory items, and see if they show up this time.

Note that initial searching is slower as your inventory is re-cached, and subsequent searches are faster. Before and after, you may want to keep a close eye on the number of items next to the word "Inventory" in the title bar of the Inventory window. It'll be higher afterwards if clearing the cache helped in this situation.

Clearing your cache is also known to help with problems of inworld textures not loading fully, and appearing fuzzy. This includes avatar and terrain textures.

If your avatar's invisible, clearing your cache may also work.

On a reliable broadband connection, you shouldn't have to clear your cache very often, but the option's always available to you!

Clearing the Cache from Outside Second Life

If you're sure of what you're doing, you can also clear your cache manually. With Second Life closed, go to the appropriate pathway and delete all the files inside the "cache" folder. Get more help on where to find these.

• Windows XP - C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\SecondLife\cache
  • Alternatively, use environment variable %APPDATA% to shorten this path to: %APPDATA%/SecondLife/cache
• Windows Vista - C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\cache
• Windows Vista Home Premium - C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\browser_profile\cache
• Windows 7 - C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\browser_profile\Cache
• Windows 7 - C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\SecondLife\ (Viewer version 1.23.5 (136262))
• Mac - /Users/<username>/Library/Caches/SecondLife
• Linux - ~/.secondlife/cache