broken avatar links

[pco88]

Friday last week, we started having issues with some users' avatars appearing to be broken images, eg on an update stream, their &size=LARGE avatars exists but you can see on the replies to the thread that the same users &size=SMALL avatars are broken. I attempted to see what it is by trying to open the image on a new tab, it takes me to the login screen (we have SSO). The url itself seems normal: https://ourinstance.my.workfront.com/user/avatar?ID=5asfafdaUserID&size=SMALL but I do not understand how it links to SSO. I've checked the user on the preview site and the avatar shows. Support says it looks ok when they access it which is true but I've also seen my other avatars broken instead. Then come Monday when support asks me about what OS we're using and whether everyone else experiences it, I checked again and of course, it fixes itself and so my ticket got closed without a real resolution. Now, it's come and affected other users. I've tested the same user using an outside network and it looks fine. So... are there other admins who have reported something similar? Polly Co

[AdinaPi1]

I'm seeing the same problem, Polly, but haven't had time to report it yet. Adina Pierce Cisco

[EXP_-_DustinMa]

Hi Polly and Adina, This is caused by caching data over the Internet. We use a content delivery network (CDN) called Akamai. This service caches static content such as images, for up to 72 hours, so there's less load on our servers, and you get the best performance possible. A CDN will provide servers throughout the world, and has to update their information over a period of time, which is why it can take up to 72 hours to show any static content that has changed recently. The technical term for it is Time To Live (TTL). Our side is 5 minutes (may be 15, it's been years since I checked, but nonetheless still a short period of time) whereas most web hosts use a 2 hour TTL. If you happen to see this issue as a problem after 72 hours has passed, and clearing browser cache doesn't help, check on a different network (cell phone hot spots are awesome for testing this type of thing out) and raise a support ticket if you still see the problem. Thank you! Dustin Martin Assigned Support Engineer Workfront

[pco88]

@Dustin Martin , If this has been used for the longest time, I'm not understanding why this has become a recent issue for us. I'm guessing since the last update and intermittently happening. I do have a support ticket open although I have not had users report it again after the last issue. Also the avatars has not changed for any of the users for the longest time. We've done the clear cache etc, did not help. It just fixes itself after a day. Polly Co

[EXP_-_DustinMa]

Interesting Polly Co... I'd be curious to know how many others see the same behavior. If no images are being updated, and they randomly stop appearing for a day or two at a time, and where they are geographically located, and finally, who their local ISP is that they use. I suppose that's the tech in me, but we'll have to see if anyone else ends up responding to this thread. Dustin Martin Assigned Support Engineer Workfront