Chat failing to initiate
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Tinker Pixels
Both group chat and IM failing to initiate. I mostly experience it in Firestorm Social Island (simhost-0be97bd680c67540a.agni), as do the rest of the team.
Starting an IM with someone else will work most of the time and every once in a while end up with a popup stating "Unable to start a new chat session with Username. The session initialization is timed out".
Group chats will either fail silently or give the following message inline:
"Second Life: You are the only participant in this IM session. Your message is not being broadcast at this ti2me."
Tested on Second Life Release 26.1.1.23806384790, Alchemy Beta 7.1.9.2516 and Firestorm 7.2.3.80036.
Log In
Lettie Linden
Merged in a post:
Unable to message friends.
Tempest Belmonte
Unable to start a new chat session with xxx. The session initialization is timed out.
Carla Heartsong
This problem is getting even worse over time, it's been this way for quite a while, and now group chats get unusable.
More info: you can have this timeout or very laggy response time for small groups, while big groups can be fine, and it's usually the same groups having these issues. As if groups are distributed over several AWS servers, and one or some are failing.
But indeed, same issue with IMs
This is definitely an URGENT issue, as this touches the core of Second Life. It already has been reported in November 2025 in another feedback.
hippiepotamus Resident
Still seeing this every day, raising for visibility!
etamae Resident
had a few instances of being unable to start im's with friends and vice versa - also this is another random one when in edit my body it has started to turn bright white (the mesh) which is a bit disconcerting! It pops back to normal skin colour after finishing the edit, but really? Whats that all about?
ArcaneTinFoil Rune
I can be online and have someone IM me - and watch my viewer say that I'm offline. Sometimes conversations can happen this way, 60% chance. I need group chat and IMs. The only other thing SL is without them is animations and gestures. This is crap. Tell Amazon to get their poo together since this started happening when LL migrated services to their servers, please
SungAli Resident
Don't know if it's related, but making the observation just in case: I experienced this where I was unable to initiate new IM sessions with a couple of contacts. I attempted to teleport to another region, and experienced the crash-on-teleport bug. When I restarted my viewer (Firestorm 7.2.3.80036) I was able to both teleport and to initiate IMs from the same region. Perhaps the same underlying error condition triggers both issues?
Hecklezz Resident
SungAli Resident The teleport disconnect issue has been known for a number of months now and was fixed in Firestorm 7.2.4 over 2 months ago now, and also fixed in LL's 26.2 version. The IM timeout issue is unrelated and happens even after the fixes to the teleport disconnecting.
I recommend updating your Firestorm to 7.2.4 for a number of fixes to WebRTC voice if that is important to you, as well as the fixes for the teleport disconnecting and other things. However this current issue with the IM timeouts requires a fix on LL's server side.
Tahiti Rae
I've been getting these errors for 1 to 2 weeks also on FS 7.1.11. I receive an IM, which I can see in my chat console (because I have that preference set to see IMs in local chat) but then I get the session timeout error. I click OK on the error and it closes the IM that I received. When I instantly restart a chat with that person, I type and send the IM reply and nothing appears. Have to relog for the IM to work. I usually get the error when I RECEIVE an IM, as opposed to initiating one. But when I initiate one with the same person who sent me one causing the error, then I can't initiate one with them. I cleared all forms of cache within the viewer but issue still occurring. Relog is the only temporary fix for me.
Tahiti Rae
Sorry - my exact errors are this: "Unable to start a new chat session with xxxxx. The session initialization is timed out." Issue happens on various regions. Location doesn't seem to be relevant.
Loly Sirnah
Just in case no one mentioned.. I noticed it happened to me on regions where there are scripted agents. don't know if it's a rule, though.. (not on Firestorme social island, my own land)
Maestro Linden
Hi guys, we have a potential fix for this bug with server version 2026-05-27.26527189617, which is currently deployed to the "Second Life Preflight" channel. If things go well, we expect to bring this build through the regular deployment process in the coming weeks.
The original region that this bug was reported against, "Firestorm Social Island", is set to be migrated to this channel/version upon its next restart.
We're looking forward to hearing whether the fix improves the situation - your feedback is highly appreciated!
Tinker Pixels
Maestro Linden Error occured at 12:29 AM SLT, shortly after the simulator node was updated to preflight. Log files sent on email. Both sender and recipient was at FSI at the time.
Tinker Pixels
Maestro Linden Group chat error (you are the only participant in this group). At Firestorm Social Island. Group was secondlife:///app/group/ca231025-790c-cc7b-42a8-f670e00b8596/about and timestamp 11:50 AM SLT. Log files sent on email.
Maestro Linden
Tinker Pixels: Thanks for the details and log files. We are investigating.
Edit:
Reviewing the logs of the 2026-05-31 11:50 SLT incident, I think you're seeing a different issue than the "The session initialization is timed out" failure mode that we expect to be fixed in this build. It looks like you were able to initialize the ca231025-790c-cc7b-42a8-f670e00b8596 group chat session properly.
The "you are the only participant" message would happen if either nobody else on the group had chat open at the time (either they were offline or had closed the chat tab), or if something else went wrong in delivery. I don't see any messages sent by others to that group or chat join events in the several minutes prior (though others did leave the chat), so the "you are the only participant" message may have been legitimate in this case.
Another related bug to watch out for is this one; when visiting in certain busy regions, agent presence can sometimes go awry and cause incoming message delivery failures:
Tourmaline Falken
Maestro Linden Chat failed with a resident who IM'd me and I was unable to respond at Firestorm Social Island 2nd June 2026 approx 3.35 am SLT. Both of us were in the same region. Log files sent on email.
Tinker Pixels
Maestro Linden It wasn't an ad hoc chat, but rather the linked group's chat. The group chat members were online as it is a group I have with a couple of alts for testing purposes like this, and the alts were online :-) But I understand that this is not in scope for this fix, so disregard that one.
Maestro Linden
Tourmaline Falken: Thanks for the logs. I see the
Alert: Unable to start a new chat session with [friend]. The session initialization is timed out
message at 2026-06-02T10:33:18Z. Did this error event actually drop a message, or did it appear before you actually sent anything material? I'm asking because the timing looks like it may be in relation to an IM_TYPING_STOP type message your viewer sent in that conversation a bit earlier. IM_TYPING_STOP is sent by the viewer automatically when you stop typing into the input field.
Tourmaline Falken
Maestro Linden I had a short exchange with the resident maybe 30 minutes earlier. I had closed the IM window and then they IM'd again. At that point, I tried to reply to their IM but got the timed out response, whereupon I logged off to get my logs to send in. Hope this helps.
Maestro Linden
Tinker Pixels: Okay. It might be worth reporting in a separate bug if it's a recurring thing. We would want to know which other members you thought should be active in the chat at the time.
Keep in mind that even if other group members are online, they will not necessarily be subscribed to the group chat session. While the SL viewer automatically subscribes to the chat of all groups at login time, some TPVs provide the option to not do that. Also, if the user closes the UI tab of a given group chat session, the viewer will delete the subscription.
Maestro Linden
Tourmaline Falken: Thanks, I appreciate the extra context.
JudiLynn India
Maestro LindenHi. This is actually happening to me this past week when I'm offline. I am greeted with this error message when I log in, if someone has IMd me while I was offline. I can usually find the IM in the COMM menu, but it will not appear in the waiting chat window.
Liam Puppy
Maestro Linden Happens in both cases. Can appear as someone IM's me, or if I try to open an IM session to message someone. Once I click the button to close the error message, it also closes the chatbox with that individual.
Tinker Pixels
Maestro Linden Error occured again today while on Firestorm Social Island (preflight sim node). Logs sent via email.
Maestro Linden
Tinker Pixels: Okay, thanks for the new logs. We think there are a few different failure modes that can lead to the error message appearing, and not all of them are fixed.
Edit: Actually, could you elaborate on the message you see and what time it occurred? I looked at your attached logs, and it looks like Firestorm.log is missing from the folder. There is a Firestorm.old log (from the previous viewer session), but it doesn't include the "The session initialization is timed out" message. That session ended around 2026-06-24T19:33 UTC (2026-06-24 12:33 SLT).
Tinker Pixels
Maestro Linden I sent a group message to Gateway Applicants (secondlife:///app/group/ca231025-790c-cc7b-42a8-f670e00b8596/about) which at first seemed to have been sent. Then when I immediately after teleported (within same region, Firestorm Social Island), got the message: "Unable to start a new chat session with Gateway Applicants. Please close and reopen conversation, or relog and try again."
I am struggling a bit with sharing logs as I have to cherry pick the files shared, since my unaltered %appdata%\Roaming\Firestorm_x64\logs folder results in a 188 MB tar.gz file. I will make sure to include Firestorm.log next time.
Tinker Pixels
Maestro Linden Another instance. Made sure to send firestorm.log this time. Happened around 11:30 PM Today (should be the last instance in the log) on Firestorm Social Island (Preflight 2026-06-25.28189172152)
Maestro Linden
Merged in a post:
Unable to start a new chat session, crash repetely on TP, slow textures rezz
alexia Elcano
I'm truly baffled that you closed this ticket, as the problem persists and continues to cause serious issues. I'm still having constant problems with private messages; since I manage a fairly well-known store, many customers contact me, but I can't respond. I also manage a Land, for which I pay for a service that isn't being provided properly—every time I move or teleport, the system practically crashes, and I'm forced to restart. My account has been slow for months—I’ve told you this in several tickets that you can easily find if you look back—and without a definitive solution, you’ve told me to try DNS, try this, try that—nothing works; I can’t find a solution. Please try to find a solution because, honestly, I can’t work anymore—I can’t do anything, or I’m completely stuck, and I’m really frustrated. Thank you.
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