firebase auth user photo URL returns 404 - ios

Question

I've been using firebase authentication for a few months in a swift application, and suddenly today the app crashed due to the user photo URL leading to 404 page.
To get the picture I use:
let user = FIRAuth.auth()?.currentUser
userPhoto = user.photoURL?.absoluteString
The userPhoto URL leads to the broken robot 404 page, but only for one specific user.
When signing in to this problematic google account, the profile picture is displayed properly.
I tried signing out and back in, as well as changing the profile picture for the account.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

I don't know IOS/Swift but I am having same issue. It seems Firebase Auth caches photoURL's and I haven't been able to figure out how to force a refresh but a solution is to show a default image onerror. In javascript/HTML, it would look like below. NOTE: There is a CSS solution using :before and :after pseudo-classes for showing a custom fallback image but it's a bit hacky so I wrote this. I know it's not swift but maybe you can use it as a guide to coding something similar for IOS.
function returnPhotoURL(){
return new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
var img = new Image();
//if the user does not have a photoURL let's try and get one from gravatar
if (!firebase.auth().currentUser.photoURL) {
//first we have to see if user han an email
if(firebase.auth().currentUser.email){
//set sign-in-button background image to gravatar url
img.addEventListener('load', function() {
resolve (getGravatar(firebase.auth().currentUser.email, 48));
}, false);
img.addEventListener('error', function() {
resolve ('//rack.pub/media/fallbackImage.png');
}, false);
img.src = getGravatar(firebase.auth().currentUser.email, 48);
} else {
resolve ('//rack.pub/media/fallbackImage.png');
}
} else {
img.addEventListener('load', function() {
resolve (firebase.auth().currentUser.photoURL);
}, false);
img.addEventListener('error', function() {
resolve ('https://rack.pub/media/fallbackImage.png');
}, false);
img.src = firebase.auth().currentUser.photoURL;
}
});
}
function getGravatar(email, size) {
// MD5 (Message-Digest Algorithm) by WebToolkit
var MD5 = function(s) {
function L(k, d) {
return (k << d) | (k >>> (32 - d))
}
function K(G, k) {
var I, d, F, H, x;
F = (G & 2147483648);
H = (k & 2147483648);
I = (G & 1073741824);
d = (k & 1073741824);
x = (G & 1073741823) + (k & 1073741823);
if (I & d) {
return (x ^ 2147483648 ^ F ^ H)
}
if (I | d) {
if (x & 1073741824) {
return (x ^ 3221225472 ^ F ^ H)
}
else {
return (x ^ 1073741824 ^ F ^ H)
}
}
else {
return (x ^ F ^ H)
}
}
function r(d, F, k) {
return (d & F) | ((~d) & k)
}
function q(d, F, k) {
return (d & k) | (F & (~k))
}
function p(d, F, k) {
return (d ^ F ^ k)
}
function n(d, F, k) {
return (F ^ (d | (~k)))
}
function u(G, F, aa, Z, k, H, I) {
G = K(G, K(K(r(F, aa, Z), k), I));
return K(L(G, H), F)
}
function f(G, F, aa, Z, k, H, I) {
G = K(G, K(K(q(F, aa, Z), k), I));
return K(L(G, H), F)
}
function D(G, F, aa, Z, k, H, I) {
G = K(G, K(K(p(F, aa, Z), k), I));
return K(L(G, H), F)
}
function t(G, F, aa, Z, k, H, I) {
G = K(G, K(K(n(F, aa, Z), k), I));
return K(L(G, H), F)
}
function e(G) {
var Z;
var F = G.length;
var x = F + 8;
var k = (x - (x % 64)) / 64;
var I = (k + 1) * 16;
var aa = Array(I - 1);
var d = 0;
var H = 0;
while (H < F) {
Z = (H - (H % 4)) / 4;
d = (H % 4) * 8;
aa[Z] = (aa[Z] | (G.charCodeAt(H) << d));
H++
}
Z = (H - (H % 4)) / 4;
d = (H % 4) * 8;
aa[Z] = aa[Z] | (128 << d);
aa[I - 2] = F << 3;
aa[I - 1] = F >>> 29;
return aa
}
function B(x) {
var k = "",
F = "",
G, d;
for (d = 0; d <= 3; d++) {
G = (x >>> (d * 8)) & 255;
F = "0" + G.toString(16);
k = k + F.substr(F.length - 2, 2)
}
return k
}
function J(k) {
k = k.replace(/rn/g, "n");
var d = "";
for (var F = 0; F < k.length; F++) {
var x = k.charCodeAt(F);
if (x < 128) {
d += String.fromCharCode(x)
}
else {
if ((x > 127) && (x < 2048)) {
d += String.fromCharCode((x >> 6) | 192);
d += String.fromCharCode((x & 63) | 128)
}
else {
d += String.fromCharCode((x >> 12) | 224);
d += String.fromCharCode(((x >> 6) & 63) | 128);
d += String.fromCharCode((x & 63) | 128)
}
}
}
return d
}
var C = Array();
var P, h, E, v, g, Y, X, W, V;
var S = 7,
Q = 12,
N = 17,
M = 22;
var A = 5,
z = 9,
y = 14,
w = 20;
var o = 4,
m = 11,
l = 16,
j = 23;
var U = 6,
T = 10,
R = 15,
O = 21;
s = J(s);
C = e(s);
Y = 1732584193;
X = 4023233417;
W = 2562383102;
V = 271733878;
for (P = 0; P < C.length; P += 16) {
h = Y;
E = X;
v = W;
g = V;
Y = u(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 0], S, 3614090360);
V = u(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 1], Q, 3905402710);
W = u(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 2], N, 606105819);
X = u(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 3], M, 3250441966);
Y = u(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 4], S, 4118548399);
V = u(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 5], Q, 1200080426);
W = u(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 6], N, 2821735955);
X = u(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 7], M, 4249261313);
Y = u(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 8], S, 1770035416);
V = u(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 9], Q, 2336552879);
W = u(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 10], N, 4294925233);
X = u(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 11], M, 2304563134);
Y = u(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 12], S, 1804603682);
V = u(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 13], Q, 4254626195);
W = u(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 14], N, 2792965006);
X = u(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 15], M, 1236535329);
Y = f(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 1], A, 4129170786);
V = f(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 6], z, 3225465664);
W = f(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 11], y, 643717713);
X = f(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 0], w, 3921069994);
Y = f(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 5], A, 3593408605);
V = f(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 10], z, 38016083);
W = f(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 15], y, 3634488961);
X = f(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 4], w, 3889429448);
Y = f(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 9], A, 568446438);
V = f(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 14], z, 3275163606);
W = f(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 3], y, 4107603335);
X = f(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 8], w, 1163531501);
Y = f(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 13], A, 2850285829);
V = f(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 2], z, 4243563512);
W = f(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 7], y, 1735328473);
X = f(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 12], w, 2368359562);
Y = D(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 5], o, 4294588738);
V = D(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 8], m, 2272392833);
W = D(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 11], l, 1839030562);
X = D(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 14], j, 4259657740);
Y = D(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 1], o, 2763975236);
V = D(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 4], m, 1272893353);
W = D(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 7], l, 4139469664);
X = D(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 10], j, 3200236656);
Y = D(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 13], o, 681279174);
V = D(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 0], m, 3936430074);
W = D(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 3], l, 3572445317);
X = D(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 6], j, 76029189);
Y = D(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 9], o, 3654602809);
V = D(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 12], m, 3873151461);
W = D(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 15], l, 530742520);
X = D(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 2], j, 3299628645);
Y = t(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 0], U, 4096336452);
V = t(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 7], T, 1126891415);
W = t(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 14], R, 2878612391);
X = t(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 5], O, 4237533241);
Y = t(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 12], U, 1700485571);
V = t(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 3], T, 2399980690);
W = t(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 10], R, 4293915773);
X = t(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 1], O, 2240044497);
Y = t(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 8], U, 1873313359);
V = t(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 15], T, 4264355552);
W = t(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 6], R, 2734768916);
X = t(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 13], O, 1309151649);
Y = t(Y, X, W, V, C[P + 4], U, 4149444226);
V = t(V, Y, X, W, C[P + 11], T, 3174756917);
W = t(W, V, Y, X, C[P + 2], R, 718787259);
X = t(X, W, V, Y, C[P + 9], O, 3951481745);
Y = K(Y, h);
X = K(X, E);
W = K(W, v);
V = K(V, g)
}
var i = B(Y) + B(X) + B(W) + B(V);
return i.toLowerCase()
};
var size = size || 80;
return 'https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/' + MD5(email) + '.jpg?s=' + size;
}