Mod Notes:

Old avatar shows up instead of new one?
How to upload avatars

Merged this topic~ WonkyKris 2Jan05

Ok, I really want to use an avatar I saw on harryloveshermione.com but I don't know how to actualy GET it. and thats all.

Hermione Jane G. Potter

Well, I'd suggest you right click on the avatar and save the image to your computer. Then you go to your Control Panel here at the boards and choose Edit Avatar Settings. There you select the file you just saved (use the browse button) and finally click on Update Avatar.
(Note: depending on the file format of your previous avatar and the file format of the new one you might need to reload the page afterwards to actually see the new image (that's something to do with your cache...))

Oh, and it's considered common curtsy to comment when you take an avatar. (If there's a link to the artists live journal and you can access the icon from there, it would be nice to lave a comment...)

I hope this helps you at all.
-Nadja


Mod-Note: I'll moveing this thread in the Question Forum ~PhoenixWriter

In addtion to what lognar1525 said, you can insert a URL to your chosen avatar in the right field right under the " Edit Avatar Settings" section - Mirtilla

I actually tried that before but it always says that there was an error. Why is that?

Hermione Jane G. Potter

What kind of error?
What does the board say or is it an unspecified error?

(also see here, could be the same problem)

PS: I know you've probably uprooted the forum already the link is just in case

It might be a problem of Portkey, not just of you Hermione Jane G. Potter. Actually it's not the first time that a member has problems with uploading an avatar, read this thread: Avatar Uploading Problems -

Might merge all these threads later,
Mirtilla

Well, I can see that you're avatar has appeared now. However, it's probably not best to use the URL option. That is called direct-linking or hotlinking.

It often uses up the bandwidth from the person's server that provided the image in the first place. It just so happens that the person's avatar you are displaying is a good friend of mine Huh, what are the odds of that? Anyway, this has happened to me many times before and my server has crashed due to excessive bandwidth. Personally, it would be best to use the alternative underneath the URL option that says "Upload a new image from your computer." Right click the avatar of your choice and save to your own computer. From there you can click Browse in your control panel at this option and find the icon where it is located. It's easier and it saves the person's bandwidth. A lot of people(Jen, included)have to pay for thier own bandwidth and it costs extra money to purchase more.

Sorry for the rambling. It's was just a word of advice for you

---Kalie

I'm having a similiar problem. Every time I copy and paste the image to My Pictures, go to my control panel, and try to put it as my avatar, it always says "Error." Lemme try it again and see if it works...

-Jayde

Umm... I don't know how to get avatars on here. I' m not an computers whiz, so I really do need help. Sorry! Pleease Help me! I'm soooo out of it! Ahhhh!


Waaaaaaaaaah! Help!

Okay. First off, you need to decide the avatar you're planning on using and that it complies with our fairly predictable rules for Avatars and Signatures. Also, it should be a decent size and have modest dimensions. I'd say 100x100 pixels and 10KB is a fair limit. It's always safer to be smaller. But more important than any of that, perhaps, is where the image is located. You basically have three options:

1. Choose a pre-loaded avatar from the built-in gallery.
2. Upload an image to Portkey from your computer.
3. Provide a link to the avatar on a personal webspace or a site like Photobucket
   Co-Mod's Note Feb 19 2009: We've switched this off at least temporarily.

Now, the place you effect all these changes is your User CP, which you can access when you're logged in by clicking "My Controls" in the right-hand side of the horizontal blue bar just before the actual forums and posts. From there, click on "Edit Avatar Settings" under "Personal Profile," which is about halfway down the menu on the left.

Alternatively, I'll provide the shorthand link to the Edit Avatar Settings panel. (That will only work if you're logged in, just to be sure.)

Here's a screenshot to highlight. Pick either 1, 2, or 3, and then click on "Update Avatar" by the arrow when you're all set. And don't worry about mistakes; it can all be changed later if need be.

CLICK TO ENLARGE


You can then upload an avatar from your computer (option 3), enter a remote url (option 2), or choose one of the default avatar from the built-in gallery (option 1).

Oh! Thanks! Now I have an avatar! Cool!

Thanks Another!

OK, this is probably a really dumb question. But I'm really bad with computers. Every time I try to save a moving avatar to my computer for later use, it always just freezes. Meaning it stops at one part and doesn't continue to move. Can anyone tell me how to save a moving avatar? Please?

It's probably not the saving part that's wrong; rather, I'm thinking that you're not using a viewer that supports animated gifs.
Chances are really high that when you save a gif file to your hard disk its animation is actually preserved, you just can'tt see it because you're looking at with MS Paint or some other basic program that doesn't know how to show you the animation. What OS are you using? Try opening the image in your internet browser.

~Jonathan

Did you save it as a .gif? if not then it'll freeze on a certain frame...

old avatar shows up instead of new one?

Ok every time I try change my avator it won't work, it just keeps the same picture. It is really bugging me because I will do everything right but just because it has jpg in it, it will keep my old picture. Why is this?

Thank goodness i'm not the only one that has this problem. I thought it was my computer that was screwing up or something. Oviously not.

I'd really like to find the soloution to this as well.

ETA: I browsed through some old threads and i discovered how to fix it. When you click Update Avatar and the old image shows up, hold down the Ctrl button and then press F5. The page will refresh andyour new image should show up

THANK YOU

Thank you so much guys! I feel I'm gonna love Portkey
I do have some questions to ask, and here they are:
1. How do you select the avatar for the forum from your computer? I haven't found any option for this in Avatar settings...
2. How can I put those two cute pictures of Draco and Ginny in my signature (ones that moogle and Di have in their signatures)
Oh, and by the way, I left the post in D/G Addicts already - see you there!

Okay, let's see if I can do this as unconfusing as possible.

You know where 'my controls' is, right? Just click on that and on the left will be another link called 'avatar settings', which, judging from your post, you have already found. So once you're in avatar settings, if you scroll down a bit there should be a section that says:

"Your image avatars
Upload a new image from your computer [Browse]
Width Height"

You basically use the browse tool and find a picture that you want from your own computer, but it has to fit the requirements of being no larger than 10KB. You can change the width and height with Portkey's resizing tools.

I actually find just getting a picture from the internet is the easiest, but if you have one yourself that you would like to use, then I hope that helped.

As for the signatures, you follow the same process of going into 'my controls', but this time you go to 'Edit Signature'. From there it's simply finding the URL for the picture you want and putting it in the image code.

[img ][http://www.site.com/imagefilename.jpg[/img]

but without the blank space inside the [img ].

But the problem is that there's no section like that. It's just Your Avatar Settings: The following file types are allowed: jpeg,jpg and Your Current Avatar: No avatar selected.

That's odd. When I go into mine it's all there...

I'll have a look around and see if I can figure out why that is. The sections should come underneath Your Current Avatar, but it's possible that something has been changed that I don't know about.

Okay, if you find out something about this, then let me know right away. Thank you for your help!

Well I couldn't find anything myself, but I've PM'd Pen, one of the head mods, to see if she knows anything about it. Hopefully we can clear this up soon.

Remote-hosted avatars disabled
(My next post below lists the procedures for uploading avatars.)

Hi guys,

Moogle PM'd me about Lodella's question. Couple of days ago, we've temp switched off remote-hosting of avatars for various reasons, including how many members were hotlinking to sites and how others were posting really big file sizes -- 60, 80, 100KB or more.

What you can do is to save a copy in your computer then upload it. 10KB max, 100x100 pixels in accepted file formats (currently JPG and GIF). Be sure to credit the artist.

EDIT: I've also listed reasons for temp disabling remote-hosted avatars in the Sig & Avatar rules thread.

Welcome to PK, Lodella, and see you around.

gal-texter, thanks for the clarification, but I still didn't get how do you upload the avatar itself on the forum

How to upload avatars
as of Feb 2009

It's like attaching a picture to an email. You already see this screen, right?

(Alternate route to that screen:
log in the forums
> click My Controls or [__] New Messages on top right of your screen
> scroll down left pane until you see Personal Profile
> click Edit Avatar Settings)



Go to Upload a new image from your computer,
hit the Browse button,
select the image file from your computer, <-- **check it for viruses/malware beforehand.
then hit Update Avatar.

** have your image file checked by updated virus scanners:
such as Kaspersky online virus file scanner
or if you have a Yahoo mail account, email the file to yourself and see if it passes their virus check

Make sure your image file's 10KB or smaller, VIRUS-FREE, with 120x100 pixels maximum width x height, saved as jpg (or jpeg) or gif. Avatar must also comply with our rules here.

If you're asking how to display one of our graphics here as your own avatar, you'd have to copy that image onto your computer then upload it using the screen above. Right-click on the image, select the "save image as" option, adjust its size if need be, then upload it as an avatar.

EDIT:

If you're replacing an older avatar, give our server 24 hours (often much sooner) to display your new one. Or try this. Or try clearing your cache (do this if you don't mind removing your temp files for other websites).

EDIT:

Be sure to credit the artist who made your avatar and/or the site you got it from. Least we can do is to publicize their name or site.

Lastly, please DON'T hotlink, ie, don't simply copy another site's URL in the avatar field as that would steal their bandwidth. It'd cost them money.

Hello!
I am new to this forum and do also have problems with uploading my own avatar.
in fact, when I choose "Edit Avatar Settings", it looks like this:


Welcome to your control panel
Your Avatar Settings


The following file types are allowed: jpeg,jpg,gif
Your Current Avatar
noavatar
No avatar selected
Pre-installed avatars
Choose an avatar from one of our galleries Base Gallery Go
Update Avatar Remove Avatar


So, there is only the possibility to choose an avatar from your galleries, but I don't see how I can upload one from my computer!

Please help me!

Hi and welcome to Portkey. We've recently restricted newcomers from uploading avatars, because we're still getting plenty of (suspected) automated &/or spam registrations. Some of them manage to upload avis.

Don't worry, you'll get permission to upload soon enough. Just keep coming here and posting. You'd know you've gotten permission when you could finally see a "Browse" button that'd allow you to select an image file in your computer.

*lowers residency threshold a bit*


EDIT Sep 29: Today, we tweaked the "Edit Avatars" screen to embed links to this FAQs thread and the one for avatar rules.

I keep getting this message:

"The file you requested to upload was greater than the limit the administrator has set for your group."

Also my dimensions are 100 x 100 and it's a jpeg file.

Check your file size in bytes. Present max is 10 KB.

If you still need assistance after checking your avi's file size, post in here so that one of us could investigate as soon as we can. At the moment, I'm extremely busy in real life dealing with storm calamities. Therefore if I'm unable to reply here after 2 weeks, it's because of that.