The broken image avatars definitely happen, but usually on older versions of DNN and they're usually the anonymous one like you've shown in your post by default.  However, changing the user avatar for a superuser really isn't something that is worth the time for most of us.  

Technically, superusers were never meant to be used for daily activities. Instead, they should be used sparingly, and only for tasks that require SU access.  

The primary reason is to protect the integrity and security of your website.  But, another really big and important reason is that superuser accounts don't technically have a user profile, as they were and will continue to be intended only for high-level administration purposes.  

If you wish to change the avatar for a superuser (or edit and maintain any other profile details), you'll first want to "demote" the superuser to being a normal user account.  Then, update the profile details.  If you wish the account to continue to be a superuser account, you'd then switch it back to being a superuser account.  

However, I'd suggest having as few superusers on your site as possible, and use them only when absolutely necessary.  (Oh, and maybe upgrade DNN, too.)  😎 

Will, I think you’re misunderstanding the original post. Those are not anonymous users. I indeed see that issue myself on a new instance using a current DNN (9.13.5) release:

Behind the scenes there is a 403 error in browser console:

It hasn’t been concerning enough for me to report but it is a legitimate issue and should not be ignored since it’s annoying.

Here is a link to original issue that was fixed, but perhaps it’s still not working in some instances: https://github.com/dnnsof...Platform/issues/5805

Also see in journal

Posted By johnhenley on 11/20/2024 5:38 AM

Will, I think you’re misunderstanding the original post. Those are not anonymous users.

I didn't mean to suggest that the users are anonymous, but the avatar is for that (until someone changes it on their own).  Maybe I could've used a different word.  :) 

I was able to correct the issue.
I run 5 portals and on some of the portals it was working as you'd expect. I was displaying the broken image both in the admin UI and on the Member Directory page. I spun up a dev instance of DNN and compared the two and noticed the photo field in the user profiles settings was missing. I recreated the field in the portals and the photo functionality and the user profile placeholder photos has returned.

Now this is working

And I see this in the Member Directory plugin

Thanks for the update!  💪🏽