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Facebook changed how their API serves profile pictures that are requested with a non-application scope UID.

Now because before Graph API 2 all applications shared the original UID, if users like me has joined Stack Exchange websites before Graph API 2, rolling out their profile pictures are not shown properly.

Facebook suggests to use an access token to query those profile pictures, either an application access token or a user access token.

A user access token is not a reliable option at all, because it would only work for users who joined website with Facebook and are currently logged in.

Application access tokens, by the way, can be used by creating sort of a proxy that would retrieve a profile picture from Facebook and display it. Yet still it's not perfect.

I think the best solution is to communicate with Facebook and ask them to offer an opportunity to convert old Graph API 1 UID's to application scope user IDs.

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    I agree that this is a valid bug, but I imagine you'll get some flack from users who would like these automatic profile pictures removed due to tracking done by Facebook (the avatars are currently hotlinked from there). My advice to such users: support this feature request, which asks to cache Facebook profile photos locally so they can't be used for tracking purposes, which in turn requires this bug here to be fixed.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Oct 25, 2020 at 20:29
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    @Ollie Not a duplicate. While this situation would have never happened if SE implemented that first, since they didn't, SE needs to fix this bug reported here before they can implement that.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Oct 25, 2020 at 20:48
  • @Sonic yeah, you're right. Vote retracted.
    – Ollie
    Commented Oct 25, 2020 at 20:49
  • @Ollie No, this problem occurred since few days but the questions and answer are both for more than a month ago.
    – Pooya Estakhri
    Commented Oct 25, 2020 at 20:50
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    From past experience, I don't think "communicate with Facebook" is a feasible option. But we'll see what we can do here, if anything.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 6:00
  • This is probably explains the problem in meta.stackexchange.com/questions/355775/… (which was erroneously closed as a duplicate of meta.stackexchange.com/questions/164325/… even though it is unrelated).
    – Emil Jeřábek
    Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 8:24
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    @EmilJeřábek For context to others, that duplicate closure has been fixed to point too this question instead.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 19:43

1 Answer 1

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Adding for now. While this is a confirmed issue, there isn't a clear path forward to resolve this, given the feasibility of working with Facebook on a problem like this. I've added this to our backlog to revisit in the future.

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