Selecting separate bones in weight paint in blender 3.6

Question

Ive made an armature with a bunch of disconnected bones in blender 3.6

When i go intoweight paint mode i am unable to select an individual bone to start weight painting.

i get into weight paint mode the way i always do. i click on my model, then ctrl click drag to also select a bone on my armature. then weight paint mode becomes available and i go into it.

normally i would simply click on each bone to select it but it doesnt work this time.

ive never worked with seperated (split) bones before so i suspect that the problem.

Solutions people have said online that ive tried.

1. untick lock obect mode.

i do that and when i select a bone it just takes me to object mode, and i need to be in weight paint mode.

2. pose mode first.

"You want the armature in pose mode (blue select outline) before you start weight painting so that you can select and move the bones while you paint."

weight paint mode isnt an option from pose mode

3. Save file, Restart Blender, Append from saved file into new scene

tried that. nothing changed.

My files is below

Answer 1

For the moment your object is not parented to your armature (there's no Armature modifier in the Modifiers panel) so you can't select any bone, parent With Empty Groups for example then assign the vertices to the correct vertex groups.

Also note that the armature has been scaled, which may give weird deformation of your mesh, you probably need to apply the scale (CtrlA).