Unable to change inherited mesh, details panel blank

Hi there.
While trying to solve a problem I’ve run into a different one.

After reparenting a paper character to a Character, the resulting inherited mesh doesn’t seem to be accessible.
The details panel is blank and if you drag it into the Event Graph, the nodes details for Default Value - Mesh are None.

When creating a blank Character blueprint the default value for the mesh’s graph node leads to this directory
“SkeletalMeshComponent’/Game/Blueprints/Characters/NewBlueprint.Default__NewBlueprint_C:CharacterMesh0”

This is a blueprint only project. I’ve tried reparenting back and forth, reloading the editor, deleting and restoring, and doing this on another computer (My partner developer). The issue is the same when reparenting this class, which is our base class for all characters in the game.

I’ve included pictures of the blank details panel, where it shows “none” in the node if dragged into the event graph, and what a fresh/new character blueprint’s mesh node says when dragged into the event graph (showing a path, instead of none despite no mesh being specified yet)

Thanks for any and all help.

Still having this issue, have looked into older answer hub posts. Often people aren’t able to reproduce the effect and the question dies. I feel like if I could change the directory that the inherited mesh directs to I could fix it ,because in the fresh class it points to a path with seems to be the default option, rather than simply “None” instead of a path at all but with a blue print only project unless theres a way to edit the uasset file I don’t know how I can fix it. Tried reparenting back and forth , playing with different things (adding, removing, recompiling) and it’s still blank.