Initial setup Use the Make test course development functionality to create a test course (the S, 10mb size is fine). Navigate to the new course. Navigate to Course administration > Users > Groups . Click Auto-create groups and create four groups using the naming scheme Group @ for members with role Student. Navigate to Course administration > Users > Groups , and click the Groupings tab. Create a new grouping that contains your four new groups. Navigate to Course administration > Edit settings . Set Group mode to Visible groups . Set Default grouping to the grouping you just created. Navigate to the index of your new course, open the forum, and open a discussion. Note that while all students in your course are in groups, no group_icons are displayed because no icons have been set for those groups. Navigate to Course administration > Users > Groups . Add icons for each of your groups, but set the fourth group to have a hidden icon. Navigate to Course administration > Users > Groups , then click the Overview tab. Observe that the group_pictures on group/overview.php are being rendered correctly. Visual tests (on both Base and Clean, on both LTR and RTL) Navigate back to the forum. Observe that users now have group_pictures rendered under their avatars. Observe that as an admin user, you have the course:managegroups permission and can thus see the fourth group's icon in spite of it being hidden. Make a note of the name of one of the users in the forum discussions, and add the user to an additional group (do not remove the user from their existing group). Observe that the user in question now has icons for both groups. Subscribe to a discussion such that you get email notifications. Open a different browser and log in as a student enrolled in the course. Navigate to the forum. Observe that as you do not have the course:managegroups permission, you do not see the fourth group's icon. Post in the discussion you subscribed to earlier. Wait for, or manually run cron. Observe that group_pictures appear as they should in your email. As admin, click on one of the group_pictures attached to a forum post. Observe that user/index.php renders a list of the users enrolled in the group, and more importantly the group_picture is rendered properly. Click the cog next to the group name. Observe that the group_picture on group/group.php renders correctly.