<blockquote>
  <p>Can a user photo support a remote image?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The answer to that is currently "no", in Craft 2.x.  However in the upcoming Craft 3.x, user profile photos are proper "assets" and can be saved to any asset source.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I'm looking to do a remote image (from plugin) as the user profile image. I've got the path saving to the column, but the image is not rendering. Anything special I need to do to get that to render?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I assume you're just ignoring Craft's default user profile "photo" field and adding your own custom one?  Or are you trying to replace the profile field that Craft uses to display profile photos in the CP with your own custom one.  I'm having a hard time seeing how you'd pull off the later in the current version of Craft 2.x.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-05T22:41:12.943Z
Awesome. To the second question, I'm not replacing the field, just using the `onActivateUser` event to grab the Gravatar URL and save to user photo. That all is working, the image just isn't rendering in the user profile area. *Updated question with a bit more context.
Ryan Shrum
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-05T22:57:06.847Z
Is it a 404? What's the URL if you view source?
Brad Bell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-05T23:09:31.223Z
It's returning an image path: http://www.domain.com/admin/resources/userphotos/user@email.com/100/http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/0cb6f4a0be98e1ae7b6dcbd046f3f049?x=QCjiscXDS If I go to that path, I get a Craft error: Page Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server. I thought I maybe was exceeding the 100 char length on that field, but the string is only 63 chars/
Ryan Shrum
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-05T23:42:53.503Z
You must have the "userEmailAsUsername" config setting set. Pretty sure there is a bug when that is set where Craft will choke on the `@` symbol as a folder name.
Brad Bell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-06T13:47:57.153Z
The directory seems to be working. If I add an avatar via upload, it works fine and creates the dir with the `@` in it (with or without the config setting). I don't think the image is being processed; do you think that has to do with the Gravatar URL not having an extension?
Ryan Shrum
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-06T15:01:55.827Z
Hrm... I know gravatar images work in profiles because we pull them in on demo.buildwithcraft.com installs based on if the email address you sign up with has a gravatar associated with it. And we're not doing anything fancy to get it to work there.
Brad Bell
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-05T19:03:44.690Z
2015-05-05T19:03:44.690Z
Brad Bell
<p>User photos don't appear to be saved in the same method as Assets. I'm looking to do a remote image (from plugin) as the user profile image. I've got the path saving to the column, but the image is not rendering. Anything special I need to do to get that to render?</p>

<pre><code>$user = craft()-&gt;users-&gt;getUserById($userId);
$user-&gt;photo = $gravatarPath;
craft()-&gt;users-&gt;saveUser($user);
</code></pre>

<users><user-profile>
Can a user photo support a remote image?
# Can a user photo support a remote image?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-05-05)

User photos don't appear to be saved in the same method as Assets. I'm looking to do a remote image (from plugin) as the user profile image. I've got the path saving to the column, but the image is not rendering. Anything special I need to do to get that to render?
$user = craft()->users->getUserById($userId);
$user->photo = $gravatarPath;
craft()->users->saveUser($user);

**Tags:** users, user-profile


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-05-05. Score: 1

> Can a user photo support a remote image?

The answer to that is currently "no", in Craft 2.x. However in the upcoming Craft 3.x, user profile photos are proper "assets" and can be saved to any asset source.

> I'm looking to do a remote image (from plugin) as the user profile image. I've got the path saving to the column, but the image is not rendering. Anything special I need to do to get that to render?

I assume you're just ignoring Craft's default user profile "photo" field and adding your own custom one? Or are you trying to replace the profile field that Craft uses to display profile photos in the CP with your own custom one. I'm having a hard time seeing how you'd pull off the later in the current version of Craft 2.x.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Awesome. To the second question, I'm not replacing the field, just using the `onActivateUser` event to grab the Gravatar URL and save to user photo. That all is working, the image just isn't rendering in the user profile area. *Updated question with a bit more context.  
> **username_1**: Is it a 404? What's the URL if you view source?  
> **username_0**: It's returning an image path: http://www.domain.com/admin/resources/userphotos/user@email.com/100/http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/0cb6f4a0be98e1ae7b6dcbd046f3f049?x=QCjiscXDS If I go to that path, I get a Craft error: Page Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server. I thought I maybe was exceeding the 100 char length on that field, but the string is only 63 chars/  
> **username_1**: You must have the "userEmailAsUsername" config setting set. Pretty sure there is a bug when that is set where Craft will choke on the `@` symbol as a folder name.  
> **username_0**: The directory seems to be working. If I add an avatar via upload, it works fine and creates the dir with the `@` in it (with or without the config setting). I don't think the image is being processed; do you think that has to do with the Gravatar URL not having an extension?  
> **username_1**: Hrm... I know gravatar images work in profiles because we pull them in on demo.buildwithcraft.com installs based on if the email address you sign up with has a gravatar associated with it. And we're not doing anything fancy to get it to work there.  

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