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RE: Why on my contacts list do contacts pictures show up and other times not????
I only quickly skimmed over this thread, so I'm sorry if this has already been posted.
Display pictures appear blank because the picture isn't "recent".
Display pictures are transfered by direct connections. In order to open one, both conversations must not have their status set to "Appear offline".
When someone changes their display picture (Or when you've just added them), your MSN asks the MSN servers if the contact has a display picture. If they do, the server gives them their IP and connects you to them to download the picture.
The picture is then saved in some obscure folder that nobody can find. Where it is located isn't important, just the fact it's saved locally is.
Now, let's say you have three friends, Anna, Bob, and Chris.
You can see Anna and Bob's picture, but Chris has never appeared online. She likes to always appear offline so people don't bother her. Nobody will *ever* see her picture unless she appears online at some point *and they open a conversation with her*.
Meanwhile, Bob has appeared online before and you can see his picture, but he claims to have a new one. He's been appearing offline for a long time. MSN doesn't know that he has a new picture, so he needs to appear online and people *need to open a conversation* with him to get the new picture.
Finally, Anna's display picture randomly disappeared overnight. This is most likely what the people here are confused about. What has happened is Anna has signed in from a new account that has a different display picture (or no display picture) while you were offline or appearing offline. Since she's signed in with a different DP, her MSN has told the servers that her DP has changed. When you sign in, your MSN checks the server and says "Hey, I need to re-download Anna's picture. I'll delete her picture so my user knows he/she needs to open a conversation with her." So it does.
Basically, this all happens under totally normal operation. It's not a bug (Though it acts like one), it's not a way to tell if people blocked you, if they're appearing offline, if they've been hacked, etc, etc.. It's just confusing to some people.
If you want to fix the problem, just open a conversation the next time you see the contact in question online. Sometimes you may also need to send them a message to make sure the connection opens, so if you want to guarantee your MSN will get their picture, open a conversation with someone and say something to them. If their picture doesn't change after a minute or two then they've either really got a blank display picture, someone's firewall is somehow blocking communication (Albeit rare), or they're not using Windows Live Messenger.
I hope this helps.
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