Unable to change avatar; avatar screen locks up my browser

What operating system and browser are you using? If you're using Internet Explorer, you might want to try enabling the "Compatibility Mode" with it. I use Google Chrome myself, and have none of the problems being reported in this forum.

Windows 7, IE 10. I tried the compatibility route and it brought back the rich formatting toolbar but didn't correct the avatar issue. I was having other issues with IE as well (taking forever to load or crashing) and nothing seemed to help. I did a system restore with no improvement so I reinstalled Windows. That cleared up all the problems so I figure I had some corrupted files somewhere. I had three top antivirus programs running so I don't think malware was the problem.

try ie11 & update java & adobe flashplayer to the latest versions.

Have ie11 again, updated Java and Adobe FP. Now compatibility mode works the way it's supposed to - the selection stays in the added list. Before, it would disappear each time I closed down the browser. After I reloaded Windows, everything worked better including Google. Apparently I had some corrupted files but I suspect that fresh install of Java helped too .

Many thanks for the suggestions guys!

Russ

could have reset internet explorer under the advanced tab in internet options.

Ya, did that. No help.

More than one anti-virus program running will definitely slow down your system, and cause some unwanted side-effects. Anti-virus programs usually don't communicate with each other, and will try to check files all at the same time, causing some really weird things to happen that you just can;t explain. One anti-virus program is all you should need.