I'm trying to use the move joint tool to re-position the bones on the grounddummy skeleton to fit a new model. Whenever I select a bone it gives me a message saying that it failed and that an affected element was controlled in position or orientation.

Screenshot how can i fix this?

EDIT:

When I try to rotate bones with just the transform controls it always gets reset (after a save and reload). (edit: you can do this, just remove all animations first )

Maybe you have keyframes set? That'd always revert any transforms if you don't apply a new key.

When I deleted the keyframe it still would not let me use the move joint tool.

I set a new keyframe on frame 0 (after deleting the old one) and it just reverted my changes made with the normal rotate tool.

EDIT: I am deleting and adding keys with the bone_root branch selected

Select the skeleton and remove all animation > edit however you want > set keys on bones > export.

How would I remove all the animation? I thought removing the keyframes did that?

EDIT: I branch selected everything, went to the animation button at the bottom, then remove animation, then selected from all, any animation type. Now the move joint tool works. Thanks Ace.

Is there a way to use the move joint tool with symmetry?

I'm not sure if you can adjust bones symmetrically post creation without scripting it. There may be a plugin out there somewhere that will allow this behavior though, I just never needed anything like it since I just adjusted one side then copied the values to the other side.

So I made my new basepose, looks fine in xsi. I added a keyframe for frame zero and one in xsi by root selecting bone_root and pressing the key icon in the bottom right. When I try to munge with the new basepose.msh I exported, nothing shows up in my side's folder. It works with a stock basepose.msh. Whats up with that?

Here is a screenshot
I noticed that my basepose had a lot fewer "lines" (Fcurves?) than the stock basepose. That must be the problem, but I don't know how to fix it.

EDIT: I solved it (i think). I branch selected the entire thing (dummyroot) and added keyframes at zero and one. It works ingame, even with the weird fcurves.