I'm surprised that not visible user avatars are generating so much necessity to talk. I honestly do not recognize this until I was mentioned in this thread. Furthermore, I also didn't have the trouble that I could not see the avatars. So I also suppose that this could be a problem by a poor internet connection of the user, which would be an individual and not a systematic problem.
Well I'm leaning towards that it has nothing to do with the server where images are hosted. If it was, a reload of the page would show different result, but it's not, it's consistent. This indicates a bug in the forum code.
It would be helpful if those experiencing this random issue could create a post with:
- operating system version
- current browser version
- a screenshot of the browser's developer console when avatars fail to load, to identify any present errors.
It also happens to me randomly that not all avatars load, but this occurs when my connection is particularly congested.
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Why?
it is clearly at the Arduino end not with the individual browser. I think if you read the whole of the thread that should be apparent. The clue is that the page never finishes loading, so how could it be any other than the Arduino's servers?
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New to me, this morning. Key I think is, I logged out yesterday(don't generally do that), logged back in to the forum this morning. Now I'm a 'hollow person'; all previous posts affected, my green 'C' is gone. Logged in and out twice more. It's not browser settings, I don't think, because it's affected both my PC and my phone.
Go figure.
Dark matter nibbling away at the universe? The man behind the curtain, pulling knobs and pushing buttons? Who knows! For sure, entropy is increasing.
This seems to be a different symptom than the one reported by @Grumpy_Mike, which was that a blank space is shown instead of the profile picture.
I noted the appearance of the profile pictures you refer to as the "hollow person" on the forum recently. I wasn't sure whether that was some new default profile picture, but after investigating further I see it is a "Custom picture".
The "green 'C'" you mention is the "System assigned profile picture" generated by the Discourse forum software by default. I don't have any idea why your account preferences would switch from using the "System assigned profile picture" to a "Custom picture" without any intervention from you. Did you do anything else significant since the last time you had the "green 'C'" profile picture? I have a vague suspicion it could be caused by the forum software pulling the profile picture from one of the authentication providers you can use to log into your account (Google, GitHub, Facebook, Apple):
I'll provide instructions you can follow to configure your profile to use the "System assigned profile picture" once more:
- Click the link below to open your forum account preferences:
https://forum.arduino.cc/my/preferences/account - Click the pencil icon to the right of the profile picture under the "Profile Picture" section of the page.
The "Change your profile picture" dialog will open. - Select the radio button next to "System assigned profile picture" in the "Change your profile picture" dialog.
- Click the "Save Changes" button.
Thanks.
I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Here's a description of the last 36 hours:
- significant presence on the forum using my PC on Friday. May have also accessed using smartphone, though I don't recall doing so. Generally leave phone logged in, usually killing the browser or going to other websites when done
- short presence on the forum Saturday AM, finishing with a logout as I would be away for 24+ hours. At that point, phone would still have been logged in, but browser not active on forum, but other websites.
- several forum accesses using my phone Saturday while travelling. Do not recall ever having to log in.
- logged in on PC this morning, noted avatar change immediately. Checked phone, didn't have to log in, but noted avatar change immediately on browser.
Not the end of the world, just curious. Biggest aggravation is not being able to quickly spot my previous posts in topics.
I'll get to restoring this setting later today, unless I decide I prefer the anonymity.
It would appear that the "Custom picture" is the new default, as just about every newbie created recently bears that image(unless they add their own, which doesn't usually happen with new accounts), instead of the "System assigned profile picture". Change in default forum software or configuration, I would say, as newbies used to get the System assigned profile picture.
Only side effect, really, is it makes it more difficult to spot newbies creating multiple topics on the same project, but I suppose if that's the way it's going to be, so be it. I still suspect it's also happening as a side-effect of some problem with accessing our usual avatar, because I did nothing to provoke the change that I know of. No, no unusual logins or login failures, nothing via Facebook, Twitter, or other agents.
I like your update to the "hollow person"!
This is an overview of the profile pictures of the new accounts created in the last two hours:
I do still see some of the "System assigned profile picture", but far more of the "hollow person". It is possible that the new accounts that have "System assigned profile picture" are people who manually selected that option after creation of a new account.
I spent some time searching through the forum settings, Discourse changelogs, Discourse bug reports, etc. and didn't find anything that looked significant.
As I mentioned in my previous reply, there are various ways to authenticate an account. The forum software pulls the "Custom picture" from the connected account (e.g,. if you used your Google account to authenticate then the initial "Custom picture" would be the picture you added to your Google account. So it is possible this change is caused by an external change in the behavior of one of the authentication providers (which could even be arduino.cc, which a completely separate website from forum.arduino.cc, but is the authentication provider for forum accounts when the alternative providers are not used).
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FWIW, I noticed a few months back a few double-character SystemDefault avatars appeared, figured there might be an issue with making the SystemDefaults unique colors, but never pursued it, it was just a curiosity. This new feature, however, grates, because so many have the same avatar that we end up hovering over them to see what the name is, then doing the same on other ones. I'm not a moderator, so it's just nails-on-the-chalkboard, not toothpicks-under-the-fingernails, but twice now I've had to dig deeper to identify crossposts. It discourages me from doing so, frankly, which is a bad thing.
Anyway, "meh", it is what it is. AFN.
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