Profile pics lost on UserID/nickname change.

I've worked out a lot of the other kinks. 

Anyway, when a user tried to change their userID they lost their profile and banner pictures. They'd have to upload them again. 

Is this a bug with a fix or should I just maintain disabling the ability to change userIDs? 

Yes, this may be a bug; I would put in a ticket on GitHub or bring it to the attention of the developers.  I have no idea if the code changes the Profile Photo album or not when a member changes their name.  Changing names should be questioned because it allows a person to maybe hide when doing abuses on a site.

Here is the part you are experiencing.  The name of the member's profile photo album is stored in the database.  My guess is that when the member changed their name; the old name for the profile album does not change.  Therefore, the code is looking for the profile photos in New-name's Photos when they are actually stored in Old-name's Photos.

I have not actually looked at the code so I don't know for sure; just guessing here.

By the way, to fix you can go into the database and check for the name of the Profile Photo album and manually change on name change.    On the site I admin, I have it where members must request a name change with a reason why the change is needed.

 Thanks much Geek Girl. Very insightful. 

I disabled the ability for users to change their Login/UserID and it most likely will be a permanent thing unless I go swimming in the profile code. 

This bug is still in the code. Has anyone an idea how to fix it? 

I find this confusing. A user name or Nickname is meant to be unique, as is the User ID. As such, I've never used the Nickname field in the Edit section of any of my sites. To me it spells disaster and it sounds as though I'm right.

I strongly suggest you don't allow your members to change their nickname unless they delete their profile and start afresh. Nicknames are used everywhere and all hell could break loose.

I've never come across anywhere where a member can change their ID. That would be an even bigger disaster. I'd be interested to know where that can be done.

Facebook for example allows their users to change its name and its username. Twitter also. Instagram, too. 

Well I could be wrong, but if you search a Dolphin database for your own username you'll get hundreds of results. Although the ID won't change, changing a username could cause very strange results.

Also, changing a username allows a member to literally change their identity. They could for example abuse someone, then change their username to hide from them.

To me is continuity is also important. If people refer to you by name in forum posts and photo comments, then you change it, other members may get very confused. For example, someone may write:

 "@Mrtn has the right idea, I'd follow the example he suggested."

But you later change your name to "Sam".

Sometime in the future, people looking for @Mrtn's bright idea will never be able to find it because Mrtn no longer exists and the post is now flagged "Sam". That's not good.

Just because FB and Twitter allow you to do it, doesn't mean it's a good idea. One site I'm on demands that you offer a really good excuse before they'll do it for you.

I have confirmed the issue still exists. It has to do with the way the default albums are handled.

There is no known fix. Fixing it will require a number of code changes in dolphin. I would not count on boonex fixing this one anytime soon, if ever. They don't seem to be doing anymore work on dolphin.

Deano is correct. There has always been a problem with the Default Albums and I'm hoping a suggestion I've made for Cheetah will eventually overcome it.

What happens is this:

I you use the standard settings in the Photos module, members are asked to post profile photos and general photos in the same album unless they're smart enough to create a new one. This causes confusion because when they post a new photo, it automatically becomes their new profile photo.

If you as Admin, decide to change Nickname's Photos to something else in the section Default Profile Album Name after members have already added photos, those photos will be moved to the new album. That new album is meant to hold profile photos and nothing else and if you look at it, you will find all the photos that you thought had gone missing.

I tried renaming the Album back to Nickname's Photos but it didn't work. It's a one-way street! You can try and hopefully you'll have more luck. In my case, it just created yet another album.

Thus I had to go through each member's albums, create a new one for them (say My Photos) and move all but the profile photo to that album. The photos then reappeared.

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Boonex assumes that admin's and members know that My Photos in the Upload Photos popup, actually means My Profile Photos and they expect your members to create a new album for all other photos. This is shear madness and something I've asked Deano to address in Cheetah.

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I overcame the problem with the help of AlexT and Leonid by modifying the Photos upload code to supply the following photo upload options:

Please Select . .  - This lets people know there are several options available.
My Photos - These are general photos and it's the most-used album
Friends Only - This is far better than tagging photos Friends Only because you don't see a message "Private Album." I put it second because it will be the most used album after My Photos
My Profile Photo(s) - The name says it all. The album will be rarely used, so it's towards the bottom.
My Cover Photo(s) - I prefer the word "Banner" because it is a banner.
Create New Album - The last item instead of the first. This stops people from creating unnecessary new albums all the time.

It took me a long time to make the code changes but they work. It's not something I can pass on to you, so in the meantime:

Never change the option Nickname's Photos in the section Default Profile Album Name in the Photos module settings unless it's a brand new site with no photos uploaded. The setting is deadly and I wonder how many people gave up Dolphin because of it.

I know I nearly did!

I will allow it but only for very good reasons.  I have only had to change two user names in all the years the site has been running.  Multiple profiles are also prohibited on my site due to the abuse it can lead to.

I ran into this issue with a site I was building a few years back.  There were only a few test members.  I fixed it by manually editing the database entries.