Some contact pictures disappear from iMessage

[gbold3]

Some of my contact pictures are disappearing from iMessage. They all show up in Contacts but some do not show in iMessage. I have tried changing the contact's picture but it shows up briefly and then disappears. I tried updating the contact with another phone number and again the picture showed up but only briefly in iMessage. I also tried resetting my network settings and logging out and back in to iCloud. Any thoughts on what is going on?

HW: iphone 7 on iOS 10.2