my avi keeps loading as a female with no clothes.

[neil Silvercloud]

Hi all

my avi keeps loading as a female and will not allow me to view appearance or add clothes etc from my invetory. Keeps saying " cannot change appearance until clothing and shape are uploaded." this has happened in the past and eventually corrected itself. How can i correct this, save my avi so this does not happen again. thanks in advance

[Ariel Vuissent]

Congratulations! You've been Ruthed. It's not uncommon, and often occurs because of a slow internet connection. If you use wireless internet, DON'T. Use an ethernet cable to connect directly to the router, instead. It could also be an issue with a borked cache, especially if you use more than one viewer.

Here's a good resource on this issue, commonly known as bake fail. There's a whole list of options there; start at the top and work your way down until something works for you. Then STOP.

The first step is usually a rebake - ctrl+alt+R. You may have to do this several times. I find that grabbing a complete outfit folder from my library - I use Girl Next Door, but you can use a different one - and dragging it onto my avatar often works fairly well for me, but your results may vary.

For future reference, you may want to create a "base" outfit with your shape, skin, eyes, and bald base, along with anything else that you don't usually change about your avatar. Save that in a folder, or in your "Outfits" folder, so that once you get this sorted, if you end up in a default outfit, you can right-click and replace it with your base avatar outfit instead of having to find all of those pieces individually.

[Rolig Loon]

If you are seeing yourself as a naked female instead of as a fluffy cloud, it is possibly because someone has told you that you can fix a bake fail problem by altering your RenderUnloadedAvatar debug setting.  You can't. That setting does exactly what it says.... it displays an unbaked avatar even when it's not fit to be displayed.  You need to fix the problem, not hide it.  Try each of the potential solutions at http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_bake_fail , starting at the top and working down the list until you find one that works for you today.  If you have this problem over and over again, it's because you have a crummy Internet connection. There are many steps to take for repairing it. Perhaps the simplest ones -- ones that work best for most people -- are: (1) Don't Use WIRELESS. Wireless connections are inherently less stable than direct cable connections and are more vulnerable to interference. Then, (2) Reboot your router. Unplug it from the power for a few minutes to let it clear its RAM. Then plug it back in and let it get a fresh hold on an IP address.

BTW, bake fail problems should disappear very soon, once Linden Lab releases the Server Side Avatar Baking upgrade.  Your Internet connection will still need attention, however, if you want to reduce lag and frequent crashes.