@xug - You should remove the "avatarmaxsize" setting as that is no longer required
That might have affected it, as the settings do not know which to choose...
The fact that a global variable did not work surprises me alot - $maximages should have displayed a number, even when set to 0 it will display 0 when called...
Maybe this is a bug induced by an edit to your global.php file? If I were you, I would try uploading a fresh global.php, then re-adding any hacks you have added one by one, each time checking if the $avatarmaxwidth and $avatarmaxheight variables will work
Satan