Same issue on iPad 3 with iOS 9
I've seen reports of this working if you drink an invisibility potion, then suicide, but there usually seems to be some kind of Bukkit interaction. Haven't been able to duplicate this myself in vanilla Minecraft. This supposed exploit has been making its way on HackForums, NodusGriefing, and other sites.
I have the same problem. We are 5 friends playing and the 2 who entered the game previously do not have the error and can see the online skins, me (that I downloaded the game yesterday) and other two friends that purchased the game yesterday can’t see online skins. Its not a problem with the link between the skin and the account, because we can see it the game launcher. Basically the game can’t get online skins from the Minecraft servers. And no software, firewall or antivirus are in the middle.