My contact pictures do not consistently appear in Messages

HI,

I do not use Facebook and cannot speak to that specifically but I can run though how iChat previously got the Buddy pics and how Messages does it now (Not that is a lot of difference).

Buddy in Buddy List (Nominally AIM) that has no Address Book/Contact app card

I.e. this person is Screen Name only in your Buddy list.

They will display the Pic they are broadcasting.

If this is an Animated pic and you have the Animate option On then you will see it move.

These pics are stored in ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Messages/Pictures

(Paste same in Finder > Go Menu > Go to Folder > Dialogue box)

IF you then Highlight a Buddy and do a Get Info (CMD + i Keys) and add "First Name, Last Name" info then an address Card is created in the app you have.

The Buddy List pic is then added to the Card automatically.

The Buddy list will tend to use the same Pic even if you change the Address Book/Contacts App card pic (see the Buddy List Info card at Profile and Address Crad as the Profile will show the different pic from the Contacts list.

You can tic the Box to "Always use this Pic" which will override any change in pic by the Buddy.

Jabber Buddy pics do vary in how they are broadcast and how soon your Messages (or iChat) app will pick up on any changes.

(WIth AIM they tend to be held on the server so if your Buddy changed whilst you were Off Line but now they are Off line they will will appear in the Off Line section with the new Pic)

Jabber Servers tends not to hold Buddy pics and therefore they are not picked up.

Google and Facebook are somewhat of the exceptions here as they have Account pics associated with the Buddy's details held at either Facebook or Google.

Part of the issue will be the fact that some Facebook buddies will not have enabled "Chat" on their account settings and the Facebook link is likely to pull a pic for Mail.

Part of it will depend on whether they are in your Contacts List.

Some will depend as to whether they are On line.

10:52 PM Saturday; November 10, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

HI,

I did start by saying I did not use Facebook.

However I did not realise from your first post you were only talking about iMessages.

I presume you are excluding those people on Facebook that you know that do not have Apple IDs or iPhone to contact via Messages on the Mac and are talking about the reminder that do have these attributes ?

Both Google and Facebook run Jabber Servers so you could be adding an Account in Messages that logged in that way to contact Facebook Buddies. (You have explained now you are not doing this).

I do notice however that when I add a Pic to my Google Profile it overrides the Messages pic when my Google ID shows up in other Jabber Buddy lists.

This can be changed again by using your own Pic and choosing the same Pic Messages is displaying and then clicking Done. IMAgent contacts the GoogleTalk server and "re-posts" the Messages pic - it is obviously about which logged in last.

This may point a way to "solve" the issue by trying to find out exactly how the Contacts are logged in to Facebook and in some cases which order.

8:22 PM Sunday; November 11, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

HI,

Thanks for letting us know.

Glad to hear you have made progress.

8:55 PM Friday; April 5, 2013

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Sorry to revive this old thread, but this is happening to me. I have the most up-to-date OS X, Yosemite, and I'm having this problem off and on. I've tried trashing com.apple.imservice.ids.iMessage.plist, restarting and re-posting my photo in contacts. Any ideas? You can see (in my attachments) my photo in the contacts app, but you can see that my photo is not showing up in the message window.

Hi,

Historically this worked as Different Pics.

As I have three Computers the Names for the Computers and the Address Cards on this Mac reflect that.

So on my iMac I am "Ralph Johns-iMac". The Mac User Account is "Ralph". The Buddy List is set to Show my Name (Pulled from the Contact Card.)

When you set up An Admin Account on the Computer for the First time you tend to pic a Login Pic (in this case the Eagle).
That would normally be added to the My Card in the Contacts App if you added an Email to the details as you progressed.

However you can change it ( Planet).

The Buddy List is the Pic you show over AIM or Jabber/Google or whatever other you use. Mine is title Main AIM as I display my Buddy Lists separately.

You can choose the Buddy Pic separately as well so that as in my pic all three places show different pics.

Having said that the iMessages pic will NOT change unless you have an Active Buddy List (it does not have to be displayed so the Bonjour account can be Enabled).

The iMessages account will use the My Card pic.

This com.apple.imservice.ids.iMessage.plist does not hold the Buddy Pic - nor the pic shown in the Chats.
Deleting it will make no difference

As your Buddy List is not titled it seems it is the Combined view (even if only one Buddy List in Enabled).

Try deleting com.apple.ichat.plist

8:48 pm Wednesday; January 28, 2015

Thanks!

Deleting com.apple.ichat.plist worked!

You are welcome.

9:54 pm Wednesday; January 28, 2015