Messages profile/ID pictures not updating

The little pictures on the left edge of the Messages app, identifying the people you're texting, do not update. The person at the other end has updated their picture by going to Messages>Change My Picture, but the update has not shown up on my end. I have cleared out user/library/caches/messages and all the user/library/preferences files having to do with Messages or iChat, as per a phone technician's recommendation, to no avail. Anyone have thoughts?

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Apr 23, 2013 1:14 PM

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3 replies

Apr 23, 2013 2:32 PM in response to marlow2689

HI,


What have you got set for them in the Contacts App ?


If you are using Buddy Lists if you Highlight the Buddy and do a Get Info (CMD and i Keys together) what does their Info Card say about the pic ?

Does it say Always use this Pic ?


The change Pic applies to AIM, Jabber and Yahoo services.

iMessages uses the Pic you have for them in the Contacts List.


User uploaded file
10:32 PM Tuesday; April 23, 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

Apr 24, 2013 12:47 PM in response to marlow2689

HI,


iCloud accounts.

This is an Apple ID

It can be used as the ID "registered" for iMessages.

It can also be used as a Valid AIM Screen Name (press the + icon at the bottom of the list)


The info you provided does not tell me if you are using the ID with iMessages or AIM.


Facebook and syncing.

I do not have a Facebook account so I don't know if the sync process you can do actually places a Pic somewhere on the computer or whether a Pic is just called from Facebook and displayed.


What I do know is the "Change My Picture" option will not change their Facebook Pic and therefore you will see no change.


NOTES.

In Setting up the computer you get to choose a picture.

This can be seen in System Preferences > Users And Groups > Your account.

By default if you set up the account including your address and Mail info the Address Card is created for you.

This then takes the Account Pic as first choice.

iChat is earlier OS versions that have Buddy Lists only then pull that pic in the Address Book to the Buddy list.

Messages does this for your non iMessages accounts (AIM, Jabber, Google, Yahoo) and th Buddy list they have.

(by Default these Buddy list are not on View).

The Change My Picture setting only applies to these Buddy lists.


However you can change the Account Pic the Contact/Address Book pic and the Buddy pic for your self independently.



User uploaded file
8:47 PM Wednesday; April 24, 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

Apr 23, 2013 6:26 PM in response to Ralph-Johns-UK

The picture for this person in the Contacts app is different (synced with facebook). The only account through which I message this person is iCloud. Does that answer everything?


EDIT: In the process of re-checking the picture that appears in the Contacts app, I decided to edit the photo, and then simply click 'done,' thereby resetting the photo within the Contacts app. About 3 minutes later, the photo in the Messages app updated.

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Messages profile/ID pictures not updating

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