get profile picture from windows live

Question

window live api

I can get user infomation, contacts, friends through the windows live api correctly.

but when i request for the user profile picture according to the following note:

Note To redirect a GET call to the URL of a user's picture, you can call /me/picture or /USER_ID/picture.

https://apis.live.net/v5.0/me/picture?access_token=MY_ACCESS_TOKEN

It responses null, in fact i have set a profile picture for window live.

it is very strange that I can get all the information except user picture, but when I use the windows Interactive SDK for user picture, it response me the right picture url.

what is the problem?

Tinct

I was having the same issue but this works for me. string.Format("apis.live.net/v5.0/me/picture?access_token={0}", externalIdentity.AccessToken); Maybe your access token is bad? – Monger

@BobbyCannon I can get all info except user picture, so my access token is no problem. – Tinct

Answer 1

Here is what I do. I did edit this code on the fly so I hope the syntax is correct.

var uri = "https://apis.live.net/v5.0/me?access_token=" + accessToken;
var profile = JObject.Parse(new WebClient().DownloadString(uri));
var pictureUrl = string.Format("https://apis.live.net/v5.0/{0}/picture", profile["id"]);

Monger

thanks! That URL still works today, using it for my oAuth Live users – Hostelry

This works. But how is it that it's not documented anywhere? Also you won't get the picture as part of any other object, you have to request it separately. – Stone

This no longer works. An error message is returned: "This API is no longer supported. Please see https://aka.ms/livesdkmigration for information about migrating your application to Microsoft Graph." – Crural

Answer 2

Maybe late... but still can be useful to someone else... You don't need the access token if you have the Live user id. Try this:

https://apis.live.net/v5.0/USER_ID/picture?type=large

Of course, you must replace the USER_ID with the one you trying to get the picture... then you can add the preferred size : small (to get a 96 × 96-pixel picture), medium (180 × 180), or large (360 × 360)

Burl