Problems with the Pitchi Poy Rig Primary

I am having difficulty parenting an armature to a mesh.

Secondary

I wonder if someone could please help me. I am trying to skin a model with the pitchi poy rig. I first made a simple rig to test the model and it parents and deforms just fine with this test rig. No problem. So, I added the pitchi poy rig, lined up all the bones and then generated the rig. The controller works fine with the green deformation bones. See the picture above, everything deforms fine! However, when I try to parent the rig to the model, nothing happens. I have tried parenting the model with the rig, as shown in both Mark Edwards and the Pitchi Poy videos to no effect. They use a simple armature deform and then, with the bones selected, use weight paint to assign automatic weights from the bones.

I've tried parenting the model to the rig using automatic weights. Nothing. I know how to parent a rig, selecting the model first and then the rig etc etc. It worked OK with this mesh and my test rig, but I cannot see why I cannot get the pitchi poy rig to parent with my model while at the same time, the pitchi poy controllers work just fine with the green deformation bones. I must be missing something real stupid, but I cannot see what, so if anybody knows what I am doing wrong, I would be so grateful if they could let me know before I go completely mad! I really have tried and tried before posting here! By the way, I have also looked on Google etc for an answer, but so far I have failed to find a solution! Thanks!
Make sure that when you create the parent child relationship the bones are within the mesh and the bones are selected last.



Make sure that all bones have their deform check box ... checked active.

In the modifiers pane inspect the armature modifier.  The enable eye icon should be active.  It can be turned off and on.  If is turned off it will have no effect.



You can also delete the armature modifier and parent it again.  Make sure to view the armature and the mesh from 3 angles top, front and side to make sure the alignment is correct.  If you have not done much weight painting do not hesitate to delete the armature modifier and parent again.