My avatar will not load.

[Rayne Foxdale]

I'm using Firestorm, and I've had a little trouble with my avatar failing to load properly for a while. Usually though, when this happens, I just replace my outfit with my skin and it fixes itself. 

Today, however, I've not been so lucky.

My avatar is, and has been a white ball (which I'd assume is the equivilant of a puff ball) the last 10 times I've attempted a relog. 

I've tried: 

Waiting for my inventory to fetch, Clearing my cache, Relogging, rebaking, character testing, replacing my outfit, toggling the HTTP option in my graphic rendering, reinstalling, logging onto a different veiwer (I was loaded but it's a non-mesh veiwer), changing my group tag, editing my appearence/shape (I can see myself in the pictures but it doesn't fix me in world), restarting my modem/router, logging into a low lag sim.

And honestly, I don't know what else to do. 

Something is clearly borked, and I don't know how to fix it.

Help would be much appreciated.

[valerie Inshan]

Here are the fixes recommended by the Firestorm tem:

http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_bake_fail

[Nalates Urriah]

When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. Get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post.

Rendering the avatar is a special case. It is a more complex process than rendering in the rest of Second Life. The idea with avatars is to save CPU cycles on users' computers and the SL servers. The idea requires your viewer to download all the textures that make up your avatar and its clothes; a shape, skin, top, pants, hair, and shoes textures. The viewer ‘bakes’ those into a single composite texture. You see your avatar render nice and sharp when that bake completes. Then your viewer uploads that composite texture for all to see. That saves others downloading all the individual textures and baking them. Your avatar goes blurry as it downloads and decompresses the composite texture you just uploaded and it becomes sharp when that process finishes. You are the only one that sees the double blurry for your avatar.

If that process hangs or fails there is a problem. Where it fails affects what you or others see.

You can try the old standby quick fixes for avatar rez problems:

1. Change your active group or group tag.
2. Press rebake (Ctrl-Alt-R) once a minute for 3 minutes.
3. Change your bald.
4. Change your shape.
5. Move to another region and try 1 to 4 again.

When those fail, check your connection as it is the most likely problem: Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection

There is a longer explanation of the problem here: #SL Clouds, Grey, and Blurry Avatars.

More in depth fixes are here: Avatar Render Problems: Ghost Cloud Smoke Ball Ruth.

This whole avatar render process is changing now. It will still be some time before the process is replaced. So, we have to deal with it for now. But see: Second Life Changes Coming

[Echo Hermit]

Greetings, Rayne.

It sounds most likely due to an issue with your connection.  I have an inconsistent internet connection, and often arrive inworld as a particle cloud, or an egg, or whatever. 

But, as you have found, what usually works for you, sometimes doesn't, and that's when things can get very frustrating. 

Some days, just flying up to 200m can fix me, sometimes it's a "ctrl" "alt" "R" (rebake) that will pull me back together again, sometimes just sliding a bald base across from my inventory does the trick.

valerie's link to the Phoenix bake_fail is the best place to go. 

You should be back to normal in no time at all.  Have faith in yourself, and take things one tiny step at a time.

[Rolig Loon]

If you are using Firestorm, your default unloaded avatar form should be an orange cloud, not a white one, so there's something else going on.  You have tried at least some of the standard solutions for a bake fail. I notice that you have also tried a Character Test.  Generally, that's a last-ditch solution.  If it fails, there's usually more to your problem than a simple borked file --- quite possibly a connection issue.  Try rebooting your router for a start, and get rid of wireless if you have been using it.  I am still puzzled by your white cloud, but maybe cleaning up your connection will be enough to solve the problem.