Face Color Irreversible change

While walking through a mall, my avatar's entire body turned black. It was no problem changing the color back to normal except for the face.

My avatar has light skin, but a black face. I can't change it.

Does anyone have suggestions?

What steps did you take to change the color?

Have you tried using a different skin?

Have you cleared your cache?

Have you done Advanced Character, Character Tests. Test Female or Test Male?

Have you done Advanced Rendering Features and turned off palletized textures?

System specs are always good, such as what operating system, what kind of video card, amount of video ram, version of SL you are using, and so on.

Hi Eala, welcome to the forums. Try everything Sue said

She only missed two occasional causes of the 'black skin' issue:

It also has been seen when people are using two monitors and running SL on the second monitor.

Some people claim that reverting your Nvidia drivers (if you have Nvidia graphics) will fix this.

See this thread for a discussion: /327/79/299796/1.html

[By the way, the 'test avatar' that Sue suggested is actually starting over from a new avatar, so be sure you know what shape, skin, eyes, eyebrows (bald cap), etc. you usually wear, because you will have to put them all back on again)
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Thanks for the suggestions.

I've tried using different skins. Have cleared the cache. Am not using two monitors, just one.

Have created a new Avatar. No problem with that one, but "I" remain black from the neck up.


System: XP SP2, GEforce 7600 GT graphics card, Nvidia drivers nv4_dsp.dll ver. 6.14.11.7824.

By "reverting" the drivers, you mean going back (or maybe ahead, if there's an upgrade) to a different version?

I don't know how to do the Advanced character stuff, or how to do Advanced anything (I guess I'm not very advanced). Actually, with the newest version of SL, I don't see the path to get to Advanced anything. Any help?

E. O.

To turn on the Advanced menu, press Control Alt D, or on some systems, Control Shift Alt D .

Let me guess. That's what Device Manager told you, right?

Just so you know, that's not really the right way to identify your NVIDIA driver version. I realize it's a little confusing, but Device Manager is only referencing the version of one particular file. What you're looking for is the version of the whole package of files NVIDIA has installed your system. NVIDIA calls this package "ForceWare".

My guess is you've currently got ForceWare version 178.24. Usually the last 5 digits of the dll file versions correspond with the Forceware version.

To make sure, here's how to find the number you're looking for:

1. Open your Windows Control Panel.

2. In the Windows Control Panel, you should see NVIDIA Control Panel listed. Open it.

3. In the lower left corner of the NVIDIA Control Panel, click on System Information.

4. In the System Information window, click on the Display tab. You'll see your ForceWare version listed. It should be in 3-digit-dot-2-digit format.


Note, if you don't have the NVIDIA Control Panel at all on your computer, then either your driver is ancient (at least several years out of date), or you've got an incomplete installation. Either way, your driver should be replaced immediately.


So you're aware, the 175 series is the most SL-friendly ForceWare version to date. Newer and older versions don't work as well with SL, and are prone to triggering SL's palletized texture bug, which has the effect of turning your avatar's skin black.

Here's how to replace your driver:

1. Go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_175.19_whql.html to download 175.19 for XP. Don't open it yet. Just download the file.

2. Go to drivercleaner.net to download DriverCleaner. It will cost you $10, but it's well worth it. I usually say it's worth at least 10 times what it costs. We're lucky that it's available for only $10. To avoid a whole array of common problems, it is absolutely necessary to run DriverCleaner every time you change driver versions. There's no other way to ensure a clean uninstall of previous drivers.

3. Reboot your machine to Safe Mode. To do this, tap F8 repeatedly while your computer is first starting up, to get to the Boot Manager screen. Pick Safe Mode from the list.

4. Once you're booted to Safe Mode, uninstall your current NVIDIA driver package, via Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel.

5. Reboot to Safe Mode again. (Note, you'll need to tap F8 again, just like before.)

6. Now run Driver Cleaner.

7. Reboot normally. (Don't tap F8 this time.)

8. If Windows offers to run the New Hardware wizard to automatically install a driver for your video card, don't let it. Press Cancel to exit the wizard. You must manually launch the 175.19 installer you downloaded. Windows won't be able to do it automatically. So double-click on it, and then let it do its thing.

9. After the installer finishes, reboot one last time.

SL should be MUCH happier now.

By the way, this may sound like a lot of work, all written out like that, but really, it's about 5 minutes, assuming your computer isn't ridiculously slow. It's basic routine PC maintenance. You should follow this same procedure every time you upgrade or downgrade video drivers. Otherwise, you will have problems, as conflicting files and registry entries from different versions will accumulate.

quick way to fix is to go into appearence, change gender, come out , go back in and change gender back.

Eala, there are known problems between SL and Nvidia graphic cards that can result in this problem ... there are many, many posts in the Jira (the SL Issue Tracker) about this. One suggestion that many people have found helpful is to activate the Advanced menu (Control+Alt+D), then go Advanced-->Rendering-->Features-->Palletized Textures, so that Palletized Textures is turned off (and leave it off). Then rebake your avatar -- from the same Advanced menu, Advanced-->Character-->Rebake Textures. (You'll see the keyboard shortcuts there too.) Unfortunately if this is a persistent problem you have to do this each time you log in.

In the new release candidate, the Palletized Textures option has been removed -- apparently they have been causing problems.

Have the same problem. Turning off palletized textures & rebaking worked