User avatar image breaks when running behind a Load Balancer/Reverse Proxy
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Summary
The user avatar is broken for users that are using the default avatar (
):
List of related issues:
- User avatar breaks after changing the base URL
- Broken avatars/icons in Confluence after an upgrade
- After Adding a Context Path to the Base URL, Icons Appear as Broken Images
Environment
Confluence running behind a Reverse Proxy/Load Balancer.
Diagnosis
The default avatar that Confluence uses is a .svg image stored locally on <confluence-install>/confluence/images/icons/profilepics/default.svg. To see if Confluence can reach the image, try accessing the image URL:
http://<confluence-URL>/images/icons/profilepics/default.svgIf the URL can be accessed, the browser will display the default.svg image.
Cause
If the URL can not be accessed and no image is being displayed, then it's possible that the Load Balancer/Reverse Proxy is blocking it.
Solution
Make sure the Load Balancer/Reverse Proxy is properly set. Here are some useful articles documenting the configuration of NGINX and Apache as Reverse Proxies:
- Running Confluence behind NGINX with SSL
- How to use NGINX to proxy requests for Confluence
- Proxying Atlassian server applications with Apache HTTP Server (mod_proxy_http)