Hi, I'm playing Skyrim for PC (Windows) and I just ran into this issue.

Archery Skill points are marked red for Drain, or skill loss, from 42 to 15, and this is why I ask oh ye wise internets...why? I have checked the 'Active Effects' Menu on Magic, nothing there, Been to the Temples and had 'All Diseases Cured' about a dozen times, thrown back a sixer of those expensive 'Cure Disease' potions and even chewed on some hawk feathers....and no sign, rhyme or reason why I've lost the majority of my archery skill...which coincidentally is my main combat skill, wonderful. So if anyone knows what to do about this, please reply...I hope this is just something stupid I've overlooked, and would hate to lose faith in what appears to be a damn fine game. >.< ....so far.

Disease Potions - NOPE
Temple Cure - NOPE
Feather Chewing - NOPE
Jumping from a mountain in a fit of rage - NOPE

For only minutes of your time, you can help an archer to go back and killing everything from a mile away...snuffle...do it, do it for the children.

I saw a loading screen:
"Serving jail time causes some skills to loose their accumulated progress to the next value. The longer the sentence, the more skills that are affected."


Maybe?
..hope it helps

I have the same problem. It's my One-Handed, and it's red and stuck on 15. The guys over at Skyrim Nexus have found that it goes back to normal when that skill increases, but it still randomly comes back to red, apparently.

Pretty frustrating. There's nothing that can be done about it until they release the Creation Kit. Perhaps using a cheat to raise the skill back to where it was might work, but I haven't tried it. It's hard to progress when my primary weapons ability is incredibly low...

Someone else also said they noticed it pretty quickly, and reloaded an old save. My last save is from ages ago, so I'm stuck until it increases.