There are a couple of reasons you may run into issues loading people's avatars. This can range from possible Settings to avatar loading issues.
Before submitting a ticket, it's important to rule out the troubleshooting steps below so we can resolve your issue as soon as possible. If issues still persist beyond that point, let's review some of the possible behaviors you might see and how to troubleshoot them:
Gray Robot Avatars
If you see an avatar that looks like this, it's being blocked for some reason.
Here are some possible reasons why that might happen:
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You may have activated Safe Mode
- You'll see a gray cancel mark on the gray robot's chest if this is the case.
- To disable Safe Mode, open your Quick Menu and click on "Change Shield Level". You'll then want to pick a safety level like "Normal" to change it back. Once the safety level is selected, you should be able to see and hear everyone in the room again!
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You have the Avatar blocked
- You'll see a gray cancel mark on the gray robot's chest if this is the case.
- To show the Avatar, you can open your Quick Menu, select the user with the avatar you're trying to see and select the 'Eye' icon under Avatar Display to see their avatar.
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Avatars are being Performance Blocked
- You'll see a red icon with an exclamation mark on the gray robot's chest if this is the case.
- To do this, you can open up the Main Menu, click on the 'Safety' page and adjust your Safety Settings to display avatars and hear voices of the corresponding Trust Rank.
- Additionally, you may be blocking all avatars below a certain Performance Rank or above a certain Download Size. You can adjust this by navigating to the 'Settings' page, navigating to the 'Avatars' menu and changing your settings under 'Avatar Optimizations'.
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Avatars are being Filtered by Content Gating
- You'll see a gray padlock icon on the gray robot's chest if this is the case.
- You'll need to change your Content Filtering settings to see avatars like this, if available.
Very Poor Avatars on Mobile
Very Poor avatars are always performance blocked on VRChat Mobile. At this time, users running the Mobile app cannot show (or wear) them.
I'm seeing gray diamonds instead of people's avatars
Here are some possible reasons why that might happen:
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You have Avatar Culling enabled
If a user looks like the image below, you'll want to adjust your Avatar Culling settings:
To do this, you can open your Main Menu, select the 'Settings' page and then navigate to the 'Avatars' menu to turn off Avatar Culling. Not sure how to do that? You can click on the icons on the right as shown in the image below to disable Avatar Culling by distance:
I'm seeing an Error Bot instead of loaded avatars
This situation applies when you see an avatar like in the image below:
This can happen due to cache issues, connection issues or installation issues altogether. In short, this one requires troubleshooting! We'd suggest you review these two articles to complete the required troubleshooting:
VRChat keeps crashing or has issues launching properly
Troubleshooting Connection Issues with VRChat
If you experience any issues after completing all the steps above, submit a Support Ticket so we can take a look. Make sure to include Output Logs!