What is "That's not a Minecraft skin, silly" error

Despite being out for several years, every Minecraft Edition still runs into various issues. One of the weird bugs that the Pocket Edition has is its inability to detect custom skins from phone storage. Though this bug is not common, some players can still encounter it while adding a custom skin that they downloaded externally onto their phones.

Here is everything to know about the "That's not a Minecraft skin, silly" error.

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Everything to know about the "That's not a Minecraft skin, silly" error

How the Minecraft skin error appears in normal circumstances

Pocket Edition allows players to add any custom skin that they have downloaded from the internet. Players can simply head to the dressing room, edit one of the characters, select owned skins, and then import it from the device's memory.

In normal circumstances, players could accidentally choose a regular picture instead of a PNG file of the skin and get this error. The error will indicate that a player has chosen an image file that is not compatible with the game and is not a skin.

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Players experiencing the Minecraft skin error while adding a custom skin

Some players might face this issue even if they are adding a perfectly normal skin (Image via Mojang Studios)

On the other hand, some players have been shown this error even though they were adding a proper custom skin without any png or texture issues.

It is safe to say that it is not a one-off glitch since many have reported it on the Mojang bug tracker website. The report's code is MCPE-170910. It was created back in May 2023 and continues to be unresolved to date.

The reason for this problem could be that the game hasn't been updated to use the new method of handling file/image access, which was introduced in more recent versions of Android (13 and above). The picture a player chooses and commands Minecraft to access is not read correctly by the game. Hence, the UI simply shows this message, even though the skin does not have any issues.

The reporter on Mojang's bug tracker website also mentioned that they reinstalled the entire game, gave file access permission manually, and even installed the game's trial version, none of which solved the issue.

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How could the error be solved?

When it comes to fixing the custom skin uploading error on the Pocket Edition, the player base cannot do anything about it. They could try to install the game and try to add skins from different devices or try to jump to previous OS versions to make it work.

A permanent fix to this issue is only possible when Mojang Studios developers themselves act on it. As of now, the bug report has remained unresolved since May 2023.