Does anyone else have a solution?

[Mizaki]

Not sure if this question will even be notice. But I got to try. =) So a friend of mine has been having a serious issue since yesterday around 11am SLT (August 20th, 2013)...[Yes, we know SL has been going through some rerolls and changes...but I think it may be an account issue, since all his other alts are working fine. It is just this one account.]

His avatar appears with a noob skin and noob hair. He wears mesh mostly and those would load properly, but the noob skin isn't allowing the Alpha layers to load at all. (Plus, this is a problem only with one avatar. His other alts load perfectly fine. So I assume it may be an account issue.)

He did everything to try and fix the issue. Rebaked, Character tests, Avatar appearance, clear Casche, re-installed viewer (He is using the latest firestorm viewer too), reset his internet router, updated his graphics card, deactivated gestures, teleported to different region servers and relogged....

But..no matter what, the avatar still remained that way..that skin won't go away. We are unsure of other ways, but if there is something we haven't tried in the solutions I mentioned, it would be great to receive some feedback.

Summarized Below:

Problems:
-Skin is ruthed. (He can't even find this skin...)
-Ruthed skin won't detach no matter what we tried.
-Mesh clothing is seen properly
-Any other cloth layers are not rezzing
-The Ruthed skin won't let alphas load

Solutions tried but failed:
-Relogging
-Rebaking
-Character test (That other skin won't even let the usual noob skin work)
-Avatar appearance edit
-Clearing Casche
-Character test
-Teleporting to a different region server
-Stripping avatar and relogging in a low lag region
-Reinstalled veiwer (He uses the latest firestorm version)
-Deactivating gestures
-Reset internet router
-Updated graphics card

(All of the above failed. =/ )

[Honey Puddles]

1. Change to another "outfit" (if neccessary, use one of the ones from the library.. use the "Replace Outfit" option in the menu, not "Add To".
2. If that doesn't fix it, quit the program.
3. Manually delete the cache folder (most likely located at c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\SecondLife (might be "Firestorm" in that last bit). If your OS refuses because "some files are busy" or something like that, restart the computer and try again.
4. Once that folder has been deleted, re-launch the SL application.
5. BEFORE logging in, go to Me > Preferences > General and ckick the "Show on login" checkmark next to "Start Location: My Last Location".
6. Click "OK"
7. FInd the "My Last Location" bar at the bottom of the login screen, and type "Omidyar" into it, then login as normal. (this can be any 'water sim'.. I just pick Omidyar because it's memorable to me).
8. From there, let SL load for a few minutes, and see if the avatar loads correctly. If not, try changing avatars again.

This is certainly no guaranteed fix, but it's something to try. Sometimes (for reasons I've never understood) the SL application (whether official of third party) fails to properly delete the cache. Doing so manually can sometimes get around a particularly corrupted file or something that the operating system just won't allow a program to delete.

It sounds like an error I've seen associated with the "Character Test" debug tool, where basically the character test files have gotten "sticky" and won't come off. This is why I NEVER suggest that people fool with that debugging tool, because it is very old techniology, and was never intended to be used in this way (and doesn't play very well with the 'new' method of tracking which items and layers are considered 'worn'.

If it is that Character test bug, the best advice I can give is "relog, try again".. it may take 10 times or more. Try different sims, different outfits, and stay the heck away from that "Character Test" option in the menu, it's certainly not going to help you fix this.

It might help if your friend downloads and installs the official SL viewer, and uses that to get the av's issues sorted out... then he can go back to the third party viewer of his choice if he so wishes.