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StumpyBloke

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 21, 2012
5,614
6,330
England
Hi all. And I’ve noticed that my account picture on the bottom left of the App Store never updates. It is an old one. I have updated it through Users & Groups and Apple ID and both fine. It is just the one in the App Store which never changes. How are you meant to change it? This is on my Mac Mini running Catalina 10. 15.4.

Thanks in advance.
 
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ApfelKuchen

macrumors 601
Aug 28, 2012
4,335
3,012
Between the coasts
Hmm. I tried updating the profile image in System Preferences > Apple ID (and also from my iPhone's Apple ID settings). I'm having the same experience as you - that image seems to update everywhere except Mac App Store. (The iOS App Store displays the currently-selected Apple ID profile image.)

I have to assume it's meant to update from the image we select for our Apple ID, as the image clears to the default profile icon if you sign out of App Store. (Yes, I tried a sign-out/sign-in, but the old image returned when I signed back in). I'm confident the image is not pulled from Users & Groups, as the icon I use there has never appeared anywhere other than on the Mac login screen.

I've also held the Shift key while re-opening App Store - some apps (Safari is a prominent example) use Shift-Open to Clear Stored State. It didn't help.

So I'd assume there's something broken. Since bug reports tend to get attention based on how many people report the same bug, I wonder how many would bother to report this minor annoyance?
 

StumpyBloke

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 21, 2012
5,614
6,330
England
Thank you for confirming. I would imagine not many would report this to be honest. There are far more pressing issues with Apple software LOL

Thanks again!
 

ApfelKuchen

macrumors 601
Aug 28, 2012
4,335
3,012
Between the coasts
After further work... I could not duplicate the issue in another User account on the Mac (which is a fairly standard troubleshooting step). In other words, the image updated normally. This usually means the "unexpected behavior" is due to some sort of fault in user data/preferences.

I trashed the com.apple.appstore.plist file in the affected User account, and now it's working as it should. (when you trash a plist a new plist is automatically created). [User] > Library > Preferences > com.apple.appstore.plist
 
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StumpyBloke

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 21, 2012
5,614
6,330
England
After further work... I could not duplicate the issue in another User account on the Mac (which is a fairly standard troubleshooting step). In other words, the image updated normally. This usually means the "unexpected behavior" is due to some sort of fault in user data/preferences.

I trashed the com.apple.appstore.plist file in the affected User account, and now it's working as it should. (when you trash a plist a new plist is automatically created). [User] > Library > Preferences > com.apple.appstore.plist

Thanks for the update. I’ll give it a go later and feed back. Stay safe!
 
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StumpyBloke

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 21, 2012
5,614
6,330
England
After further work... I could not duplicate the issue in another User account on the Mac (which is a fairly standard troubleshooting step). In other words, the image updated normally. This usually means the "unexpected behavior" is due to some sort of fault in user data/preferences.

I trashed the com.apple.appstore.plist file in the affected User account, and now it's working as it should. (when you trash a plist a new plist is automatically created). [User] > Library > Preferences > com.apple.appstore.plist

Update: tried what you said but still doesn’t work.

I deleted the exact plist
I changed my iCloud avatar via settings
I opened up App Store again and still the old image

I’m at a loss now.
 

Cjward_24

macrumors newbie
Sep 22, 2020
1
0
I am also having this same issue on my MacBook Air. I am not sure how to go about the plist method, could someone give me a step by step for that? Thanks!
 

katbel

macrumors 68040
Aug 19, 2009
3,632
32,565
I'm having the same issue in all my devices iOS . The only exception is an old iPhone that still has iOS 13
 

Adrien421

macrumors newbie
Jul 12, 2021
1
0
I am having the same issue. The App Store on my iPad and iPhone are showing the correct profile picture. It is only my new MacBook Pro 2020 that is not updating my App Store picture.
 

katbel

macrumors 68040
Aug 19, 2009
3,632
32,565
I am having the same issue. The App Store on my iPad and iPhone are showing the correct profile picture. It is only my new MacBook Pro 2020 that is not updating my App Store picture.
I discovered you need to have at least your own contact in iCloud Contacts on the web,
the same one where
in settings,
Siri and Search you use in My information:
that is “enough” to have your profile picture sync in all the right places.

Forgot: you need to restart your devices and sometimes you need to click on your iCloud settings that most of time will show your initials but then your profile picture will appear.

Apple ?!
 
Last edited:

matt18uk

macrumors newbie
Feb 11, 2022
1
0
I have been plagued by this issue and I (think) have finally resolved it..

To clear and refresh the Apple ID profile picture that shows in System Preferences, empty the following folder:-
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.systempreferences/

To clear and refresh the Apple ID profile picture that shows in App Store, empty the following folder:-
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.appstore/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore/
 

klausewitz

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2017
3
0
totally strange. i had the same issue with a wrong profile image in the mac app store, in system preferences and also in the contacts app. i changed the image in the contacts app and this – for me – did the trick. it almost instantly updated everywhere to the correct image. obviously the profile image in contacts is the source of the other profile images?! 🤷‍♂️
 
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