BuddyPress.org

In my members directory using alpha sort the names are showing up based upon username rather than display name.

Digging into the code to see how to fix that I see in bp-core-classes.php the following as part of function prepare_user_ids_query():

// We prefer to do alphabetical sorts against the display_name field
// of wp_users, because the table is smaller and better indexed. We
// can do so if xprofile sync is enabled, or if xprofile is inactive.

In the settings I have xprofile sync enabled, but I’m not sure what it is supposed to do, or how. What it is NOT doing in my case is making any changes to the WordPress user table such as nickname to match up with the xprofile field for display name.

I have a custom registration page so it may be that I’m not doing something that the default registration page does.

Any idea what the likely omission may be?

For the time being I’ve turned off syncing and so my members directory is correctly displaying in alpha order based on display name, but from the code it is clear that it would be more efficient to have sync enabled.