buddypress and gravatar conflict using P2, sandbox and many other themes, WPMU

[azizpoonawalla]

Buddypress v1.2.1 and 1.2.2
Theme P2 v1.0.4
WPMU v2.9.2

when i activate the Buddypress plugin, gravatars for replies to a post inherit the same gravatar as the original post author.

If the comment is made by a registered user, the gravatar loads correctly. Comments left by unregistered users however do not show the correct gravatar, even though email address is correctly entered.

originally posted to wordpress trac ​http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12592, advised to post to BP trac instead

[lgedeon]

Same issue in the sandbox theme.

I tested and sandbox is sending the correct email address. Another site suggested that buddypress requires username not email but email is how gravatar works.

Oh, why have a different system? Gravatars are not going to become global if even the friends of wordpress do not use them.

[azizpoonawalla]

possibly related tickets:

​http://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/2219

similar issue was reported fixed a few months ago:

​http://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/1681

[lgedeon]

I found a solution for my version of the problem and learned a few things along the way that might help with other BuddyPress avatar problems.

Full text at: <a href="​http://luke.gedeon.name/buddypress-wrong-avatar-fix.html">​http://luke.gedeon.name/buddypress-wrong-avatar-fix.html</a>

What I found:

In the file /wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-core/bp-core-avatars.php, lines 344 and following contain the following code:

global $authordata;
if ( is_object( $user ) )
$id = $user->user_id;
else if ( is_numeric( $user ) )
$id = $user;
else
$id = $authordata->ID;

if ( empty( $id ) )
return $avatar;

I think that last “if statement” may be there to catch cases where the commenter does not have a BuddyPress account (which is the majority on my site at this point). However, if you look closely at the block just above the “if ( empty( $id))” you will notice $id is never going to be empty at this point.

That suggests two possible solutions.

Solution 1:

I have not tested this, but it makes sense that you could move the last “if statement” above the first “if statement.” That way you can check for “empty( $id )” before it gets set to”$authordata->ID”

Solution 2:

I found it works quite well to add these lines just under the last “if statement.”

if ( is_string( $user ) )
return $avatar;

This will catch any case where an email is sent as input, which is what all (most) non-buddypress themes send. Cases where numbers or objects are sent (the BuddyPress method) will be handled normally.

I am going to spend a little more time getting familiar with BuddyPress and then try to get dev access so I can get this fix into a future release of BuddyPress. In the mean-time, we will have to just do it as a hack.

[johnjamesjacoby]

(In [3035]) Fixes #2288, #2183, and #2426.