Profile Avatars

freebrickproductions · June 01, 2025, 09:07:26 PM

Is there not a way to upload our own personal avatars to the forum anymore? I was planning on changing mine (I currently have the AL flag as temporary since it was one of the "gallery" options), though changing something else on my profile settings caused my previous avatar to disappear, and I can't see a way to select a file of my own to upload.

LilianaUwU · June 01, 2025, 09:14:23 PM

Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 01, 2025, 09:07:26 PMIs there not a way to upload our own personal avatars to the forum anymore? I was planning on changing mine (I currently have the AL flag as temporary since it was one of the "gallery" options), though changing something else on my profile settings caused my previous avatar to disappear, and I can't see a way to select a file of my own to upload.

I've worked around it by going to Wikipedia and grabbing what I wanted. (Speaking of which, pride flags in the gallery options when?)

freebrickproductions · June 01, 2025, 09:18:35 PM

Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 01, 2025, 09:14:23 PM
Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 01, 2025, 09:07:26 PMIs there not a way to upload our own personal avatars to the forum anymore? I was planning on changing mine (I currently have the AL flag as temporary since it was one of the "gallery" options), though changing something else on my profile settings caused my previous avatar to disappear, and I can't see a way to select a file of my own to upload.

I've worked around it by going to Wikipedia and grabbing what I wanted. (Speaking of which, pride flags in the gallery options when?)

That might work in some cases, but I was planning on using one of the pieces of pride art of my pony OC for my avatar, admittedly.

Pride flags in the gallery options would be great though.

LilianaUwU · June 01, 2025, 09:19:54 PM

Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 01, 2025, 09:18:35 PM
Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 01, 2025, 09:14:23 PM
Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 01, 2025, 09:07:26 PMIs there not a way to upload our own personal avatars to the forum anymore? I was planning on changing mine (I currently have the AL flag as temporary since it was one of the "gallery" options), though changing something else on my profile settings caused my previous avatar to disappear, and I can't see a way to select a file of my own to upload.

I've worked around it by going to Wikipedia and grabbing what I wanted. (Speaking of which, pride flags in the gallery options when?)

That might work in some cases, but I was planning on using one of the pieces of pride art of my pony OC for my avatar, admittedly.

Pride flags in the gallery options would be great though.

Oh, you're Huntsville Railfan? I should've caught on.

freebrickproductions · June 01, 2025, 09:21:37 PM

Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 01, 2025, 09:19:54 PM
Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 01, 2025, 09:18:35 PM
Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 01, 2025, 09:14:23 PM
Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 01, 2025, 09:07:26 PMIs there not a way to upload our own personal avatars to the forum anymore? I was planning on changing mine (I currently have the AL flag as temporary since it was one of the "gallery" options), though changing something else on my profile settings caused my previous avatar to disappear, and I can't see a way to select a file of my own to upload.

I've worked around it by going to Wikipedia and grabbing what I wanted. (Speaking of which, pride flags in the gallery options when?)

That might work in some cases, but I was planning on using one of the pieces of pride art of my pony OC for my avatar, admittedly.

Pride flags in the gallery options would be great though.
Oh, you're Huntsville Railfan? I should've caught on.

Yeah, lmao.

Molandfreak · June 01, 2025, 09:55:03 PM

Upload to imgur, then right click on the image and grab its url. Make sure it's 80px or below.

Scott5114 · June 01, 2025, 11:55:20 PM

Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 01, 2025, 09:14:23 PMSpeaking of which, pride flags in the gallery options when?

Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 01, 2025, 09:18:35 PMPride flags in the gallery options would be great though.

It's a good idea, but I think it'll have to wait until after the server problems stabilize a bit—I wouldn't want to have them disappear because of some sort of upgrade or something and make it look like we were pulling a Target on y'all.

I went for a more subtle approach with mine...

The Alabama flag as an avatar kinda looks like it's a broken image or something we'd set a banned user's avatar to.

freebrickproductions · June 03, 2025, 03:39:53 PM

Quote from: Molandfreak on June 01, 2025, 09:55:03 PMUpload to imgur, then right click on the image and grab its url. Make sure it's 80px or below.

Doing that keeps giving me this error, even when I made the image 61p x 70p:

Quote from: Forum Error MessageThe following errors occurred when trying to save your profile:
The image you are trying to use surpasses the max width/height settings, please use a smaller one.

I can only assume the file size is too big, or the forum doesn't like .png files for avatars.
EDIT: Testing with the 61p x 70p version converted to .jpg still doesn't work.

EDIT 2: Putting it down all the way to 44p x 50p works, so I guess it was just file size. I'll investigate further later tonight.
EDIT 3: Or maybe the forum doesn't like avatars above 60p in height now?

EDIT 4: 65p works, hmm...
EDIT 5: Yeah, a 65x65p square seems to be the upper limit currently?

gonealookin · June 03, 2025, 06:48:30 PM

Quote from: freebrickproductions on June 03, 2025, 03:39:53 PMEDIT 5: Yeah, a 65x65p square seems to be the upper limit currently?

Aha, thank you for figuring that out.

I shrunk the photo to 65x65, then uploaded to Imgur.

<-- Looks like it displays here at 80x80 though.

TheCatalyst31 · June 03, 2025, 10:32:22 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 01, 2025, 11:55:20 PMI went for a more subtle approach with mine...

You gave me an idea. It helps that my home state uses a rainbow on one of its standard signs.

oscar · July 06, 2025, 11:38:53 AM

I'd like to restore the avatar I've had for a long time. It was a route marker I photographed (heavy edits to comply with this forum's avatar guidelines), which I uploaded to the AARoads server.

If you'd prefer something hosted on a third-party server, I now have a Flickr account.

Scott5114 · July 06, 2025, 08:17:56 PM

@Alex do you still have oscar's avatar on the server somewhere?

Bruce · July 06, 2025, 08:23:36 PM

Quote from: oscar on July 06, 2025, 11:38:53 AMI'd like to restore the avatar I've had for a long time. It was a route marker I photographed (heavy edits to comply with this forum's avatar guidelines), which I uploaded to the AARoads server.

If you'd prefer something hosted on a third-party server, I now have a Flickr account.

You could copy the avatar from the Wayback Machine into Imgur and use that URL.

LilianaUwU · July 06, 2025, 10:28:43 PM

I was gonna change back after Pride Month, but 65x65 is a very small size, and even the reduced size crop of my profile pic accounts for the old 80x80 limit.

JayhawkCO · July 06, 2025, 11:16:55 PM

Quote from: oscar on July 06, 2025, 11:38:53 AMI'd like to restore the avatar I've had for a long time. It was a route marker I photographed (heavy edits to comply with this forum's avatar guidelines), which I uploaded to the AARoads server.

If you'd prefer something hosted on a third-party server, I now have a Flickr account.

Oscar, see if this works:

https://i.postimg.cc/qBcTMWjL/avatar-1107-1348108042.jpg

oscar · July 06, 2025, 11:34:26 PM

That, and the same image hosted on my www.alaskaroads.com server, exceeds the forum's size limits for avatars not hosted on the aaroads server. If Alex can't find my old avatar on the aaroads server, then I'll have to shrink the avatar on my server from 80x80 to 65x65.

JayhawkCO · July 07, 2025, 12:18:53 PM

Quote from: oscar on July 06, 2025, 11:34:26 PMThat, and the same image hosted on my www.alaskaroads.com server, exceeds the forum's size limits for avatars not hosted on the aaroads server. If Alex can't find my old avatar on the aaroads server, then I'll have to shrink the avatar on my server from 80x80 to 65x65.

I had just downloaded the pic from your profile from the waybackmachine and then hosted it on postimages.org.

jakeroot · July 18, 2025, 11:57:13 AM

The old forum limits were over 100px, somewhere around 150 or 120.

Did something change on SMF's side? This is hilariously regressive.

hotdogPi · July 18, 2025, 12:01:54 PM

I can't find a way to update my signature (to update which routes I've been on) without my current avatar going away.

kphoger · July 18, 2025, 12:08:29 PM

Quote from: hotdogPi on July 18, 2025, 12:01:54 PMI can't find a way to update my signature (to update which routes I've been on) without my current avatar going away.

Huh, that's interesting. I haven't changed my avatar in many years, but I most recently changed my signature in April with no problems. And my signature uses 449 out of 450 allowed characters.

I do see, however, that "No avatar" is automatically selected if I attempt to edit my profile now.

jakeroot · July 18, 2025, 12:10:00 PM

Quote from: hotdogPi on July 18, 2025, 12:01:54 PMI can't find a way to update my signature (to update which routes I've been on) without my current avatar going away.

I updated my location and it deleted my avatar, so I understand your concern.

There is no longer any way to upload an avatar directly, so you'll need to post your avatar somewhere else online and then paste the URL.

Quote from: kphoger on July 18, 2025, 12:08:29 PMI do see, however, that "No avatar" is automatically selected if I attempt to edit my profile now.

This is the same issue I had, the upload option disappears and any uploaded avatar is deleted if you edit your profile and then save it, since the "no avatar" option becomes the default option without the upload option being available.

kphoger · July 18, 2025, 12:15:34 PM

Well, the change obviously happened since early April, or else my avatar would have been wiped out then.

vdeane · July 18, 2025, 12:40:07 PM

It happened during the last restoration of the forum after a long period being down. The avatars aren't actually deleted, however - they show up in the gallery, so you just have to poke around to find the string of characters that's used as the file name for the stored one.

jakeroot · July 18, 2025, 12:56:26 PM

Quote from: vdeane on July 18, 2025, 12:40:07 PMIt happened during the last restoration of the forum after a long period being down. The avatars aren't actually deleted, however - they show up in the gallery, so you just have to poke around to find the string of characters that's used as the file name for the stored one.

Bafflingly, when I do that, it shows a single option for anything other than the categories: yours (avatar 45 1399424045). WTF!!?!

I also don't see any way to change those characters to find my old one. Not that I'd ever take the time to figure out which string of characters was my old fingerpost avatar...

hotdogPi · July 18, 2025, 01:03:46 PM

I tried "copy image address", which showed my current avatar (before it was lost) in the preview. However, when clicking "save":

QuoteThe following errors occurred when trying to save your profile:
The avatar you have selected is not a valid image

By doing so, it removed my avatar, but my signature did not update.

The file is https://www.aaroads.com/forum/custom_avatar/avatar_12069_1563874566.jpg, which I only still had because I have more than one tab open. However, that URL seems to have been deleted as soon as I lost it.

I clicked Preview on the signature before I did anything with the avatar, if that matters.

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