[Error Message] Avatar Issues [SOLVED]

[Tim-7967]

I've been having problems getting avatars to be linked to correctly on my forum.

As I try to save space on my forum, I generally disallow usage of the direct avatar upload and instead get by with requesting my users to upload the avatar to another location and provide a link to the avatar.

The only problem is that it can't seem to identify the link correctly. It keeps saying a link to my avatar at Gravitar is invalid when it is the correct link to get to the image in question.

Any ideas what might be causing this problem?

[frostschutz]

This user has been denied support.

Is this using a Gravatar plugin or are you just putting the URL in directly in the URL field? Since you're using Gravatar here too, I don't know what the problem would be seeing as it works here.

Maybe a typo or space in the URL somewhere due to a bad copy&paste?

[Tim-7967]

I'm using the direct URL from a copy/paste. It is not a bad copy paste as I have tried multiple avatars URLs with it at different locations and it still does not work.

It reports:

URL is invalid

Even though it is a valid and working URL. I'm guessing its a PHP misconfiguration or a Apache misconfiguration somewhere but I don't exactly know what could be causing it. As it is being ran on a host about to open its doors very soon to the general public, they have been pressing me for what might be causing it (which is why I'm asking here :p).

[Tim B.]

Can you give us a link to an example of the problem please. Are you putting http:// in front of it?

[frostschutz]

This user has been denied support.

MyBB tries to download the avatar anyway in order to determine its size. If this download fails, if the file can't be read, or if the image size can't be determined, it will display the invalid URL error.

See usercp.php line 1796 following...

If your host disallows downloads, and or if your directory is not writable, then this error would happen. You might have to add debug messages to usercp.php to find out where exactly it fails.

[Tim-7967]

directory is not writable

That's the problem. I was trying to save space and as I don't want to allow avatars hosted locally, I disallowed writing to that directory.

Is there any way I can easily disable Avatar uploads? I have not been able to find an option for it in the MyBB configuration.

---

Can you give us a link to an example of the problem please. Are you putting http:// in front of it?

http://forums.fbbz.cz.cc/usercp.php >> (USER: DUMMY, PASS: 12345678)

[frostschutz]

This user has been denied support.

well, if there's no setting, the easy way is to simply remove the input field from the template

a user could still submit an avatar, if they knew how to change the form to make their browser send a request as if the field was still there

however few users are tech savy enough to do that and even if they managed it, it's not like it'd be an issue security wise

you could use a plugin to disallow it completely

[Tim-7967]

Ok, thanks.

I've found the solution anyway as I am going to be rewriting the user settings panel as my sites going to have MyBB integrated with other systems. I might release the control panel to the general public if it works out very well but it won't be a true bridge between MyBB and other systems.