Avatar fallback is not what the doc says

[Rc85]

Steps to reproduce

Steps:

1. Open this link to live example: https://codesandbox.io/p/github/G1anpierre/nextjs-14/csb-fkn239/draft/keen-easley
2. You can see the avatar is an icon when alt is "Remy"

Current behavior

According to the documentation, this is the order of the fall back

• the provided children
• the first letter of the alt text
• a generic avatar icon

In the example provided, no children is provided, so it should show the first letter of the alt text. But it doesn't. It's showing a generic avatar icon.

Expected behavior

It should show the first letter of the alt text, which is R.

Context

No response

Your environment

npx @mui/envinfo

System:
    OS: Windows 11 10.0.26200
  Binaries:
    Node: 22.14.0 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.EXE
    npm: 10.9.2 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.CMD
    pnpm: Not Found
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 145.0.7632.162
    Edge: Chromium (141.0.3537.92)
  npmPackages:
    @emotion/react: ^11.14.0 => 11.14.0
    @emotion/styled: ^11.14.1 => 11.14.1
    @mui/core-downloads-tracker:  7.3.9
    @mui/icons-material: ^7.3.9 => 7.3.9
    @mui/material: ^7.3.9 => 7.3.9
    @mui/material-nextjs: ^7.3.9 => 7.3.9
    @mui/private-theming:  7.3.9
    @mui/styled-engine:  7.3.9
    @mui/system:  7.3.9
    @mui/types:  7.4.12
    @mui/utils:  7.3.9
    @mui/x-date-pickers: ^8.27.2 => 8.27.2
    @mui/x-internals:  8.26.0
    @types/react: ^19 => 19.2.14
    react: 19.2.3 => 19.2.3
    react-dom: 19.2.3 => 19.2.3
    typescript: ^5 => 5.9.3

Search keywords: avatar, fallback

[linear]

MAT-1794

[Rc85]

Fallback order only happens when src is provided and the src fails to load. If src is undefined, fallback order is ignored and goes straight to generic avatar icon.

[github-actions]

This issue has been closed. If you have a similar problem but not exactly the same, please open a new issue.
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