it can be both, and i can adjust the uploaded image size limit.

Never underestimate my laziness. I voted "C" but like Radcliffe I don't really care.

If people use a decent hosting site - photobucket, imageshack etc for external avs there should be no problem

A or C, but not B. Or D., tar and feather bastards who pick slow computers from which to host their avatars.

Quite possibly one of the coolest options on the profile page.

the problem usually comes from just linking to a pic hosted elsewhere on the web, not on a photo hosting site.

yeah but if you ban external hosting youd ban those sites too

i always just put my avatars up on my photobucket account so i dont have to adjust them and upload here

i was using imageshack for my last avatar, which seemed to be the culprit.

actually, i just tried going to the imageshack front page, and it wouldnt come up for me, so maybe their servers are down.

imageshack is usually the culprit. they're the worst.

i have avatars turned off for the time being, because some threads simply won't load.

Stupid behavior shouldn't be encouraged.

Also, they make the board look horrible to people not logged in (potential members), as do animated, oversized avatars, in my opinion.

Also, for those who lack resizing skills, isn't there some PHP script which will resize the images to the proper dimensions?

should we really be concerned with what potential members think of this board?

Haq, have you looked over the board code to see if something in it is causing the problem? A page should still partially render even with an image linked from a slow server, shouldn't it? I browse other phpbb boards, and they don't have this problem.

Actually, I just don't want the board to be displaying animated avatars and images in signatures when I'm too lazy to log in. I was just trying to not sound so selfish.

I have no idea what I would look for. Are you sure those other boards allow remote avatars?

Absolutely sure. In fact, I don't think any of them allow you to upload them.

What would cause a browser to delay rendering until the images load? I assume it would be in the HTML rather than the PHP?

I'm sure the people who are hosting the images being used as avatars would appreciate external avatars being disabled, too.

And I forgot to add: there are plenty of tech-savy people here who are always willing to help resize avatars, if need be.

No, PHP. If it does anything to the URL of the image at all, the PHP script will hang when it tries to go get it. If it just copies the URL (not the image itself, just the URL string) onto the destination page, then it would be fine, but I'm pretty sure it's doing something with the image, just don't know what. Even if it's something as simple as checking its size.

I can resize an avatar, i just dont want to

I guess this could have to do with the too-large-image resizing hack, although i didn't think that was applied to avatars. Oh well, I won't have time to look it over anytime soon.