Why Does Firebase Return Inconsistent photoURL Values Between Main User and ProviderData?

Below is an explanation and a workaround that may help clarify the behavior you’re seeing.

What’s Happening?

Firebase maintains two places where profile information like photo URLs are stored:

1. Main User Object (user.photoURL & user.displayName):
   Typically set at sign‑in or via a call to methods like updateProfile.
2. Provider Data (user.providerData):
   An array containing information from each identity provider (in your case, Google).

Because Firebase caches the initial provider information until a reload or re­authentication occurs, changes made on the provider side (Google) might only update one of these fields.

Key point: Updates in the Google account may not be automatically reflected in both the main user object and providerData. Firebase does not force a sync of updated provider data on every access.

Workaround

To ensure that you’re using the most up‑to‑date information, you can force a refresh (reload) of the user object. Once you call the reload method, Firebase fetches the latest info from the server, which includes any updated provider details.

Example

JAVASCRIPTCopied
// Assume 'user' is your currently signed-in Firebase user
if (user) {
  user.reload()
    .then(() => {
      // After reload, re-read the user object
      const refreshedUser = firebase.auth().currentUser;

      // Use the refreshed values
      let avatar = refreshedUser?.photoURL;
      let name = refreshedUser?.displayName;
      let email = refreshedUser?.email;

      const providerData = refreshedUser?.providerData;
      if (providerData && providerData.length > 0) {
        // Since you're only using Google,
        // you can safely get the Google provider data, or iterate
        const googleAccount = providerData[providerData.length - 1];

        if (googleAccount?.photoURL) avatar = googleAccount.photoURL;
        if (googleAccount?.displayName) name = googleAccount.displayName;
        if (googleAccount?.email) email = googleAccount.email;
      }

      // Now use updated avatar, name, and email as needed.
    })
    .catch((error) => {
      console.error("Failed to reload user:", error);
    });
}

Additional Considerations

• Caching Behavior: The inconsistency is not necessarily a “Google issue” but rather how Firebase caches provider info.
• updateProfile: If you call updateProfile manually on the Firebase user object, you can control what data is stored in the main profile fields. However, it won’t update the underlying providerData which is still set by the external provider info at sign‑in.
• Reauthentication: In some cases, forcing a reauthentication may also help pull in the fresh data.

By reloading the user, you ensure that you’re reading the most current state and mitigate the inconsistency between the main profile fields and the providerData array.

This approach should help keep the displayed profile photo in sync with your Google account settings.