User avatar missing on login screen (shows blank), but works on lock screen

Help
1

I’m running into an issue where updating my user avatar (using either built-in icons or custom images from my home folder) doesn’t reflect on the main login window—it just displays as a blank avatar. However, once I log in and lock the screen, the updated image appears correctly. The problem is isolated entirely to the initial login screen. Please see the attached screenshots for reference.

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2

Here what AI says. :grin:

https://share.google/aimode/yzjKCyRZ8t5dt8mQB

3

Thanks Buddy, it worked. Thanks to you and the Gemini AI. :grinning_face:

This is the work around suggested by Gemini AI, which worked for me. Before that, my OS is Kubuntu 26.04.1.

Fix 1: Use the Universal .face.icon File

SDDM explicitly looks inside the root of your home directory for a hidden file named .face.icon. Placing your avatar image there with public read permissions bypasses any subfolder permission locks.

  1. Open your terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T).

  2. Copy your desired image (replace path/to/your/avatar.png with the actual path to your picture) directly to your home directory, renaming it to .face.icon:

    cp path/to/your/avatar.png ~/.face.icon

  3. Grant absolute read permission so SDDM can view it:

    chmod 644 ~/.face.icon

  4. Log out or restart to verify if your picture loads.