RenaissanceFestival.com Forums

R/F.com Updates => Ask the Admin => Topic started by: Joyce "Delfinia DuSwallow" Howard on January 04, 2014, 07:05:10 AM

Title: Profile picture
Post by: Joyce "Delfinia DuSwallow" Howard on January 04, 2014, 07:05:10 AM
How do I go about adding a profile picture? Sorry to say I have not been here in awhile and would like to change a couple of things. Good to be back!
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Merlin the Elder on January 04, 2014, 07:52:39 AM
Joyce, if you are trying to use your current profile picture, use this link in place of the one you currently have: https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/1011967_10201578626889449_2024788565_n.jpg

When you use a picture, the link must be to the image itself, and not a page with the image embedded. Sorry for the geek-talk.

Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Rani Zemirah on January 04, 2014, 02:27:48 PM
I was trying to help Joyce with her issue, and tried to test my instructions on my own profile, and now it won't even accept the URL for my previous avatar... that I simply copied and pasted right back the way it was to begin with. 
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Joyce "Delfinia DuSwallow" Howard on January 04, 2014, 04:46:36 PM
Tried and tried and its not working. Can someone check this out pretty please?
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Merlin the Elder on January 04, 2014, 05:54:05 PM
Joyce, the link I have above is directly to the photo.  The link I see for your photo on here is to a page rather than to an image. That will not work. It has to be the URL to the image itself. 

It is possible that the source website has hot-linking disabled, because it can affect their bandwidth (don't think that's an issue with FB, but who knows...) 
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: DonaCatalina on January 06, 2014, 05:20:29 AM
Some of Facebook's new privacy settings prevent hotlinking. Flickr or photobucket is a better choice for storing photos you want to be public.
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Rowan MacD on January 06, 2014, 09:05:40 AM
  Agree with Donna-I use Photobucket  to host pics. 
  It's also a good place to store pics that you don't want to lose, in case your computer takes a dump. Just be sure to mark them 'private'. 
  By using a 3rd party hosting site, your access to your photos is unaffected by any changes in the hosting policies of forums and FB.   Many places are trying to cut costs by reducing bandwidth use by preventing folks from using their bandwidth to host videos and photos being used elsewhere.
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Rani Zemirah on January 06, 2014, 11:16:59 PM
My original avatar is hosted on Photobucket, so if it's not accepting it, then the issue is with the forum, and not the URL.  I'll try again now, but it wouldn't work yesterday, and I have never had any issues with using it in the past, so clearly something has changed here. 


Edited to update:
No... it's still not letting me link to any photo... not with a Direct Link, or an IMG link specifically for forums... nothing.  I even used the link to Joyce's photo that Merlin posted, to see if it was something I was doing wrong... and it doesn't work, either.  There is clearly something in the system here that is preventing the images from showing. 
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Merlin the Elder on January 07, 2014, 06:27:39 AM
The link that you currently have loaded leads nowhere, Rani...   http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/sanjati/Scarby09/HPIM3435.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/sanjati/Scarby09/HPIM3435.jpg)  If the link works for you--showing an image while you're logged onto Photobucket--then the issue is likely with your Photobucket settings.
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Rani Zemirah on January 07, 2014, 07:17:54 AM
Merlin, my Photobucket setting for that whole album is Public, and that is only one of many photos I've tried in the last couple of days, including photos from my facebook profile that are the same as the link you posted to Joyce's photo.  It still doesn't accept any of them. 

If it will let me post this photo link here, then it should let me use it here as my avatar, correct? 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/sanjati/Scarby%2009/l_30d7758136d4472d82060ea9626c9e-3.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/sanjati/Scarby%2009/l_30d7758136d4472d82060ea9626c9e-3.jpg)

But it doesn't...


I can even post the image, itself...

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v469/sanjati/Scarby%2009/l_30d7758136d4472d82060ea9626c9e-3.jpg)

... but it still won't let me post anything at all as my avatar.


This is the facebook image I tried to change it to, as a test to make sure it wasn't the R/F forum settings that were the problem, and it wouldn't accept it, either...

(https://scontent-b-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1472902_10201841006699237_808389296_n.jpg)


Oh, and I am currently not logged into either facebook or photobucket, so it's nothing to do with my settings, since both photos still show up here. 
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Merlin the Elder on January 07, 2014, 12:45:14 PM
Try this.... Replace the 3 characters %20 with a single space in the URL of the first pic.  The forum doesn't like the encoded space in the avatar pic. The second pic may exceed size limit for posting, but I don't know...

I have no issue when I change my photo, but did when I encoded the space with the %20.
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Rani Zemirah on January 07, 2014, 10:43:59 PM
Well, look at that!  Thank you, Merlin!!!  :) 


Now, if you can work the same miracle for m'Lady Joyce, we'll be all set! 
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Joyce "Delfinia DuSwallow" Howard on January 13, 2014, 08:30:02 AM
Thanks everyone,problem fixed!
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Rani Zemirah on January 13, 2014, 03:47:03 PM
Yay!  I'm so glad I was able to explain it so you could understand it!  LOL 
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Irma on April 29, 2014, 10:19:18 AM
This morning I attempted to change my avatar.  I selected the option to change the photo, added the URL to one of my Facebook photos, clicked the change profile button.  Now my profile has the "no avatar" option selected, even though that was not my choice.  Is there something I am missing?  Thanks.
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Merlin the Elder on April 29, 2014, 06:27:03 PM
Make sure you've selected "Specify avatar by URL" next to where you put the address to your photo. Be also aware that URL must be the pointed to the image file itself, and not a page with the image on it.
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Rani Zemirah on April 29, 2014, 06:33:48 PM
Irma... when you open (click on) the facebook image you want to use you should then Right Click on it, select "Open Image In New Tab" (or Window, depending on which browser you use) from the drop down menu, and once it opens in it's own window you can select the URL in the Address Bar at the top of THAT page, copy it, and paste it into the appropriate field on your R/F profile page.  That should solve the problem. 
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Irma on April 29, 2014, 08:55:57 PM
The URL was https: etc.  I deleted the "s" from https, and the avatar loaded.  Thanks for the replies.
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: Craigmeister on December 02, 2015, 12:08:05 PM
Huzzah!  I finally read this entire thread and was able to post a profile picture.  Now I just need to find a better one.  Grammercy, Merlin!
Title: Re: Profile picture
Post by: dbaldock on December 02, 2015, 11:01:14 PM
Quote from: Irma on April 29, 2014, 10:19:18 AM
This morning I attempted to change my avatar.  I selected the option to change the photo, added the URL to one of my Facebook photos, clicked the change profile button.  Now my profile has the "no avatar" option selected, even though that was not my choice.  Is there something I am missing?  Thanks.

Facebook does a pretty good job of obfuscating the URLs of photos on their servers.

This is the URL of one of my Facebook profile photos, as shown in the Address line of my Firefox browser (it points to the photo album page which contains the image) - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1136718334817&set=a.1558182911168.84115.1133127451&type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Fscontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-ash4%2Fv%2Ft1.0-9%2F2869_1136718334817_7080272_n.jpg%3Foh%3D895b38c5ffe47683d8d1d48f824b73aa%26oe%3D56F7A5D1&size=604%2C403 (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1136718334817&set=a.1558182911168.84115.1133127451&type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Fscontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-ash4%2Fv%2Ft1.0-9%2F2869_1136718334817_7080272_n.jpg%3Foh%3D895b38c5ffe47683d8d1d48f824b73aa%26oe%3D56F7A5D1&size=604%2C403)

This is the URL of the actual photo, which shows in the Location field of the Properties pop-up (selected in the Right-Click Context Menu) - https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/v/t1.0-9/2869_1136718334817_7080272_n.jpg?oh=895b38c5ffe47683d8d1d48f824b73aa&oe=56F7A5D1 (https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/v/t1.0-9/2869_1136718334817_7080272_n.jpg?oh=895b38c5ffe47683d8d1d48f824b73aa&oe=56F7A5D1)

(https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/v/t1.0-9/2869_1136718334817_7080272_n.jpg?oh=895b38c5ffe47683d8d1d48f824b73aa&oe=56F7A5D1)

So, you have to work a bit to use a Facebook photo as an avatar here - also taking into consideration that you really should select a square image, since regular, rectangular images will look distorted.

Hope this Helps some!

Take Care,
David Baldock