How to Fix Skins Currently Unavailable Error

Sometimes people receive random errors while installing or changing skins from DotNetNuke Host and Admin pages.

If you are one of those people who receive following error:


Error: Skins is currently unavailable.
DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. --->
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at
DotNetNuke.UI.Skins.SkinDefaults..ctor(SkinDefaultType DefaultType) at DotNetNuke.Common.Globals.get_DefaultSkin() at
DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Skins.EditSkins.isFallbackSkin(String skinPath) at
DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Skins.EditSkins.ProcessSkins(String strFolderPath) at
DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Skins.EditSkins.ShowSkins() at DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Skins.EditSkins.LoadSkins() at
DotNetNuke.Modules.Admin.Skins.EditSkins.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

Check your DotNetNuke.config file and ensure that it has an entry for SkinningDefaults after BlockRequest tag like following:

<skinningdefaults>
<skininfo admindefault="Horizontal Menu - Fixed Width.ascx" default="Horizontal Menu - Fixed Width.ascx" folder="/DNN-Blue/">
<containerinfo admindefault="Image Header - Color Background.ascx" default="Image Header - Color Background.ascx" folder="/DNN-Blue/">
</containerinfo>
</skininfo></skinningdefaults>