Enable thumbnails in People Search

Configuration

If you get empty placeholders instead of picture thumbnails in People Search, it is possible that pictures assigned to people in question were not placed in a picture library, but in a different library or location. Search & Preview search result template expects that pictures are located in a picture library and therefore searches for a miniature thumbnail version of the original picture (to save bandwidth and other resources). Such thumbnail is created automatically by MOSS but only for a picture library and is located at a specific path in relation to the original picture, e.g.:

Original picture:
http://intranet/photofiles/whoiswho/photos/9846.jpg

Thumbnail file:
http://intranet/photofiles/whoiswho/photos/_t/9846_jpg.jpg

To verify if that is the case, check the properties of the empty placeholder and note where does the link point to. If it points to a location with “_t” in the path, copy the path and try to modify it to point to the original file (see example above). If the modified link displays the original picture correctly, it indicates that the picture is not placed in a picture library and that is the reason why the thumbnail does not exist.

There are two solutions that can be applied here:

- Place the pictures in a picture library (and update all references in user profiles)

- Modify the search result XSL template used in people search to point to the original picture instead of to its thumbnail: In lines 29 and 31 of People.xsl file you need to replace? PictureThumbnailURL? string with?PictureURL?.