Wordpress DiscourseConnect Provider updating Discourse avatar when it shouldn't

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The discussion revolves around the Wordpress DiscourseConnect Provider updating Discourse avatars when it shouldn’t. 37Rb reported that despite having the Force Avatar Update option disabled, some Discourse users’ avatars were being replaced with the Wordpress “Mystery Person” avatar. However, 37Rb later suggested that this might not be related to the Wordpress plugin, but rather Discourse’s default behavior when a user chooses “Custom picture” without uploading an image. angus confirmed that the WP Discourse plugin would never send a default avatar to Discourse. After removing the Simple Local Avatars plugin from WP, 37Rb and 37Rb reported that the problem seemed to resolve, suggesting that the issue might be related to the removed plugin.

1

We use the DiscourseConnect provider in the WP plugin but we do not want the WP plugin to set the Discourse avatar. We have the Force Avatar Update option disabled in Discourse > DiscourseConnect > DiscourseConnect Provider.

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In the Discourse settings we have also have the only relevant setting I can find disabled.

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But recently we’ve seen several Discourse users where the Wordpress “Mystery Person” avatar is used as their Discourse avatar. For example

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We’ve seen this happen both for new users and for users that have been around for a while. In the latter case, their avatar used to be the default Discourse avatar (their initial) but then changed to the Wordpress Mystery Person avatar.

As far as I can tell, our settings are such that the WP avatar should never be used in Discourse. Am I understanding this correctly? Is it possible there has been a bug introduced recently that’s causing this?

We’re on WP-Discourse plugin version 2.5.3.

2

I just noticed this may have nothing to do with the Wordpress mystery person avatar and might just be what Discourse shows if you choose “Custom picture” without actually uploading a picture. Coincidentally, they look the same.

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I’m not sure why anyone would do that but if that’s the case then it’s probably not related to the Wordpress plugin. :blush:

It’s strange though that some users’ preference would get changed from “System assigned profile picture” to “Custom picture” without them changing the preference.

3

Yeah, the WP Discourse plugin will never send a default avatar to Discourse, regardless of your settings, so there’s something else going on here.

4

We had Simple Local Avatars installed on WP and didn’t really need it so we removed that. I’ll keep watching to see if the problem persists.

5

I haven’t seen the problem occur since uninstalling Simple Local Avatars. Could be a coincidence but if anyone else has this problem I suggest trying that.