Unclear User picture field description in Account Settings page

Thanks for the patch! It would need to go into Drupal 8 first, though. (And since this is a string change I'm not sure it would be backported to Drupal 7, although it's an admin-facing string, so maybe: http://drupal.org/node/1527558.)

Of course that did not work, because the field was expecting a path in the Drupal file streams format, e.g “public://defaultuser.jpg”.

I don't think it necessarily expects that (in fact, I didn't even know it works). An actual URL works fine here also, like http://example.com/sites/default/files/whatever.png (where http://example.com is replaced with the URL of your site). I think that's probably the intention of this field.

It's a neat trick that you can use a stream wrapper too (and there are some advantages to doing so since it's portable if you move your site to a different server, e.g. dev to staging to live, and sounds from your other link like there are other use cases too?). But it might be too advanced to document in that much detail here.

Part of the problem with this field might also be that it doesn't seem to have any good error feedback if you do enter something invalid (like sites/default/files/defaultuser.jpg). It seems like it just fails silently.

Also, in my testing, typing "sites/default/files/defaultuser.jpg" directly actually does work (provided that the file exists). It only seems to be a problem if the file doesn't exist in the first place?

Salah and I set up a clean environment to retest with, and you are correct, the user.module is not broken, because it accepts URLs of both types - "sites/default/files/defaultuser.jpg" AND "public://defaultuser.jpg".

This is actually an issue with the inconsistent ways contrib modules are formatting the user picture. In this specific case, it was the views User picture display handler

In /views/modules/user/views_handler_field_user_picture.inc

  function render($values) {
    if ($this->options['image_style'] && module_exists('image')) {
      // @todo: Switch to always using theme('user_picture') when it starts
      // supporting image styles. See #1021564
      if ($picture_fid = $this->get_value($values)) {
        $picture = file_load($picture_fid);
        $picture_filepath = $picture->uri;
      }
      else {
        $picture_filepath = variable_get('user_picture_default', '');
      }
      if (file_valid_uri($picture_filepath)) {
        $output = theme('image_style', array('style_name' => $this->options['image_style'], 'path' => $picture_filepath));
        if ($this->options['link_photo_to_profile'] && user_access('access user profiles')) {
          $uid = $this->get_value($values, 'uid');
          $output = l($output, "user/$uid", array('html' => TRUE));
        }
      }
      else {
        $output = '';
      }
    }
    else {
      // Fake an account object.
      $account = new stdClass();
      if ($this->options['link_photo_to_profile']) {
        // Prevent template_preprocess_user_picture from adding a link
        // by not setting the uid.
        $account->uid = $this->get_value($values, 'uid');
      }
      $account->name = $this->get_value($values, 'name');
      $account->mail = $this->get_value($values, 'mail');
      $account->picture = $this->get_value($values);
      $output = theme('user_picture', array('account' => $account));
    }

Because of the check using file_valid_uri, the output is set to '' (nothing) in certain circumstances, which is what we were seeing in our original setup (a View of User comments with a User picture). This is a situation in which you must have the default file URL in the format of public://

So, what should we do here?

Perhaps we create a separate issue in the views module?

In addition, it still might be worthwhile improving this admin string, by still saying that the default image can accept a URL using the Drupal streams format (e.g of public://) and thereby helping new people learn the Drupal way quicker?

Let us know what you think.

Quite relevant:

#1021564: Allow to set image style when using theme('user_picture')
#1107464: user default image doesn't get formatted
#1109804: Not resizing in views

User picture is a field now in D8, moving to D7, although I'm not sure this will get in.

+1 for this! I just ran into the described problem and entered a normal file path. The picture showed up but was never displayed correctly.

I would have saved hours if a little sentence would have described that everything works fine if I use as stream wrapper URL.
So please please just add a bit more documentation. This is really frustrating and besides all discussion, does it really need two years to add a useful sentence or hint?

Also, in my testing, typing "sites/default/files/defaultuser.jpg" directly actually does work (provided that the file exists). It only seems to be a problem if the file doesn't exist in the first place?

I can not confirm this (and I tested it!). The file works but is never being processed by the selected image style. And that's the key point...

I just ran into the same problem again because I had forgotten this "§$%&§§ ;) ;)

Please please fix the fields description and safe lifes :)