BuddyPress.org

Hey y’all, I was having the same issue and I followed @sandholdt‘s solution. I’m a complete Unix noob so if I can do it . . . so can you!

Specifically,
SSH’d to /wp-content/uploads
typed chown -hR avatars [username] <— for me this was the username I use to login with my FTP client.

That’s it. Good luck.