User Profile pictures changing after updating another profile

Question

SharePoint 2013 + February 2016 CU

We have an issue when uploading pictures to User Profiles in Central Admin. The steps to recreate the problem are:

1. Choose a profile to edit (not your own) from the User Profile Service. We'll call this user domain_otheruser
2. Change/upload a new user photo to the domain_otheruser profile and save
3. Go back to the profile and note the URL of the profile photo. It should contain your username, not domain_otheruser.
4. Find your own profile and note that the picture has changed to the one you uploaded for domain_otheruser.

This causes a secondary effect when you try to "fix" your own profile photo, as the user profile data was updated for domain_otheruser to point to your own user profile name (they have the same value). So by changing your own photo, the photo for domain_otheruser is also changed.

I noticed another user posted about this issue: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/70d8411f-5eaf-4850-873c-5c356c65ad67/user-profile-pictures-changing-after-updating-another-profile?forum=sharepointgeneral

I cannot find where Microsoft has publically stated the issue is still happening, they seem to think it only occurring within the October 2015 CU.

Answer 1

With the March 2016 CU, this definately is not occurring. The PictureURL value, after uploading and saving to an alternate user, shows with the correct identity for the MThumb URL (which is what is displayed in the UPSA).