Second Life users frequently report a Dae parsing error. We opened this page in order to collect Blender related examples for when this error happens and list the causes and resolutions found so far.

If you are affected, then please add your example to this page

  • Check if none of the already known causes applies (see below)
  • Make a copy of your original blend file.
  • In the copy Remove all objects except the mesh(es) which makes problems.
  • Save the blend file with “compression” (see the left sidebar in the file save window).
  • Make a test export of your item.
  • Check that trying to import still results in the dae error.
  • Upload your demo to http://pasteall.org/blend
  • Create a comment at the bottom of this page and add the link to the blend file on pasteall.org

If you know another cause and/or fix please add a comment on the bottom of this page.

Find the Logfile

The logfile is named SecondLife.log (assuming you use the default SL Viewer). Different viewers might use different names.
Typical locations where the logfiles can be found:
Windows XP  C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\SecondLife\logs\
Windows 7 C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\logs\

Typical causes for this issue

Special characters in Object names

Most dangerous characters are: & < ! > # $ ‘ “

Resolution:

Remove special characters in Object names and then export again

Special characters in File names

Most dangerous characters are: & < ! > # $ ( * ) [ ] { } ‘ “

Resolution:

Remove special characters in file names (renaming the .dae file should be enough)

Extremely dense Meshes

Please check if your mesh contains areas with very small triangles (edge length smaller than about 1 millimeter)

Resolution:

Try to avoid high resolution meshes. You are doing better when you put high density into textures and normal maps (Normal maps are now supported by Second Life)

Orphaned edges and vertices

If your mesh contains edges which do not belong to any face or disconnected vertices.

Resolution:

Remove these edges and vertices.
Hint: in Edit mode Select -> Non Manifold to find candidates. You may want to disable the “boundary” option in the operator panel.

Duplicate Vertices

If your mesh contains duplicate vertices this can cause issues. However sometimes duplicate verts are on purpose (for example when you use the split edge modifier in Blender 2.73 or older) so you need to test if this issue is caused by split edge or by accidental duplicates.

Resolution:

Remove the duplicate vertices.
Hint: in Edit mode ‘W’ -> Remove Doubles to delete the duplicates.