Usually you can add an avatar to your Online Notifier by either selecting their name from the menu (if they’re nearby) or by typing their name. If you type their name then the tool attempts to convert it to an avatar key by using a key lookup service on the internet. This is required because Second life does not provide a built-in way of achieving this.

The database of keys contains a huge number of avatars, but not all. If an avatar is not found in the database then you’ll receive a message like “name could not be found in the key database”. If you receive this message then you have two choices. You can either ensure they’re nearby when adding them (guaranteed to work), or you can obtain the avatar key yourself. The following steps explain how to do this:

Tip: Another possible reason for receiving this message is when you’ve mistyped the avatar name. To ensure you have the name exact you can copy/paste it from their Profile page.

• Step 1: Click the “Search” button in Second Life.
• Step 2: Ensure the “All” tab is selected. THEN also ensure the “People” drop-down option is selected.
• Step 3: Do a search for the avatar name.
• Step 4: Click on the avatar name.
  Note: Ignore the “Resident Profile” result. Click on the standalone name.
• Step 5: Scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll see a message like:
  “Link to this page: http://world.secondlife.com/resident/1fd0f162-7d93-42a6-9299-4db3d3ca3c46″.

  The key is shown at the end of the url there, so in this case the avatar key is “1fd0f162-7d93-42a6-9299-4db3d3ca3c46″. Copy it to the clipboard.

• Step 6: Add an avatar to your Online Notifer, and instead of typing an avatar name simply paste the avatar key instead.