Where's My Shape?

[Alley Hotshot]

One grows attached to their avatar. I really liked how it evolved over the past five years and I really was proud of how I was able to construct such a fine looking avatar. Today, I go onto Second Life and my avatar would not download. Just that blasted puff of smoke is all I could get. I looked in my files and find that the shape has not loaded, so I double click it and get a message that they could not find my shape. The other shapes in my inventory worked fine, but naturally, my avatar no longer looks the same. How can I get my original shape back? Why is it missing from my inventory. The link is still there, but the SL gods tell me its missing. Help me recover my avatar!

[Fayette Charron]

Alley,

   it could be the region you are in having issues. I've had problems with shapes not loading before, but I'm not sure if that message came though or not, I always have too many windows open to notice most notifications. Try going to another area, if you haven't already, and loading your avie. Other things are the typical avie test, the rebaking and if on firestorm rebuilding the bridge. Hopefully one of these things will help you out. I know it's frustrating not being able to be yourself in world. Don't give up. I'm sure the issue is fixable. <if I was more tech savvy I might be able to help more, but unfortunately I'm not> Good luck!

[sodasullivan]

I have had this same issue since server side rendering began. I have never had it occur once in the two years prior that i have been here. You are working ona shape or a skin and when you save it, you get that wonderful message that the asset server failed to save it, but it should be okay ina few minutes. Wrong. From that point on, your shape is there in your inventory, but when you try to wear it, you geta message that an asset server failed to locate the item. (It can happend with alphas too). You will be told to try goingto another sim on another server. That usually wont work either. Clearing your cache, even manually, will not fix it either. Hopefully,  you have saved a shape that is similar form a previous edit. You can put that on and it will work. The shape you want is long gone.

[dd Temin]

Go to a different sim..........clear your cache.........then relog.... into   that new sim that you went to  by chosing  " log into last location".  This will force reload  of your avatar from the main Linden servers.  It may take a minute or so to see your Avatar  the first time  as  your cache is reloading.

To play it safe , Dont relog into a Magnum type server  as they are using server side appearance...at least not untill you clear up this problem.  Do your re-log into a Main Agni type server.

If you already  put a different shape than your old one   you can see if  the old one is now  back in inventory  and try to wear it again.

It is always a good idea to make yourself a notecard...of all your avatar shape numbers that can be seen in "edit appearance mode".  Head, face,torso arms legs feet ..everything...all those demensions. Keep a copy on you own pc hard drive.This also useful  to create again the exact same avatar in another OPEN Sim world.

Good luck ...

[sodasullivan]

This issue has just occurred with me twice in three days , so i am goingto try and break it down into probably too much detail. It really is becomming frustrating and i think it would haveto bea server issue, since it spans across viewers once it occurrs.

Your editing your shape,and you attempt to save it and you get a message stating that change was unableto be saved and to try again ina few minutes. i am not sure of the exact wording.

everything is fine till you try and drag an outfit folder on or relog. Typically, I am a puff of smoke and I get the message: "Failed to find body part named (SHAPE NAME) in the database. Now, you can see it in your inventory. You can see links for it in your outfit folders. BUt as far as the server is concerned it does not exist. This issue will continue if you change viewers.

I have tried the flllowing:

1.Wait an hour to see if it would come back.

2.Went to an empty, non server side sim and tried to attach

3.cleared cache, both by viewer and manually.

4.logged off a non server side sim, cleared cache, and logged back in

5.Doing a clean re-install.

6.Doinga clean re-install and moving the cache folder to a new location (RAM disk)

Ultimately the shape becomes useless. This can also occurr to alpha layers as well. My advice is to make several copies of your shape and don't edit it on a server side sim.