It all works whenever I try it, from whichever user account, so thus far my troubleshooting attempts are foiled. However, I have screenshots from users of intermittent failures. (It's a super simple page that pretty much just displays the text in a particular user profile field, and gives an error if it is blank.) In all cases so far, logging out and back in has solved the issue for users. I'm just wondering if there is a different "approved" way to access the user profile fields, some other step I should be taking first to ensure this method works, or something else that might cause it not to work intermittently (e.g. an older browser of some specific type or configuration, a very stale cookie, etc.). Thanks.

Harrumph, perhaps I'm getting closer. I got several reports that it seems to happen on the user's very first login (for what it's worth, we're requiring them to use the "forgot password" link to set a password). With that in mind, I set up a brand new test user and sure enough was able to reproduce it and get a var_dump($USER) -- I put '***' over some private info. It sure looks like the "profile" array isn't there! Ideas on next steps now?

object(stdClass)#22 (58) { ["id"]=> string(3) "764" ["auth"]=> string(6) "manual" ["confirmed"]=> string(1) "1" ["policyagreed"]=> string(1) "0" ["deleted"]=> string(1) "0" ["suspended"]=> string(1) "0" ["mnethostid"]=> string(1) "1" ["username"]=> string(23) "***" ["idnumber"]=> string(0) "" ["firstname"]=> string(9) "***" ["lastname"]=> string(9) "***" ["email"]=> string(23) "***@yahoo.com" ["emailstop"]=> string(1) "0" ["icq"]=> string(0) "" ["skype"]=> string(0) "" ["yahoo"]=> string(0) "" ["aim"]=> string(0) "" ["msn"]=> string(0) "" ["phone1"]=> string(0) "" ["phone2"]=> string(0) "" ["institution"]=> string(0) "" ["department"]=> string(0) "" ["address"]=> string(0) "" ["city"]=> string(0) "" ["country"]=> string(0) "" ["lang"]=> string(2) "en" ["calendartype"]=> string(9) "gregorian" ["theme"]=> string(0) "" ["timezone"]=> string(2) "99" ["firstaccess"]=> int(1606953660) ["lastaccess"]=> int(1606953917) ["lastlogin"]=> string(1) "0" ["currentlogin"]=> int(1606953660) ["lastip"]=> string(13) "***" ["secret"]=> string(0) "" ["picture"]=> string(1) "0" ["url"]=> string(0) "" ["descriptionformat"]=> string(1) "1" ["mailformat"]=> string(1) "1" ["maildigest"]=> string(1) "0" ["maildisplay"]=> string(1) "2" ["autosubscribe"]=> string(1) "1" ["trackforums"]=> string(1) "0" ["timecreated"]=> string(10) "1606953546" ["timemodified"]=> string(10) "1606953564" ["trustbitmask"]=> string(1) "0" ["imagealt"]=> string(0) "" ["lastnamephonetic"]=> string(0) "" ["firstnamephonetic"]=> string(0) "" ["middlename"]=> string(0) "" ["alternatename"]=> string(0) "" ["token"]=> string(32) "52BAGbl2BFYJ3Ru2chJuxBCRqv3SdwCU" ["timerequested"]=> string(10) "1606953624" ["tokenid"]=> string(2) "27" ["sesskey"]=> string(10) "dDWMMukfpY" ["preference"]=> array(5) { ["auth_manual_passwordupdatetime"]=> string(10) "1606953660" ["core_message_migrate_data"]=> string(1) "1" ["email_bounce_count"]=> string(1) "1" ["email_send_count"]=> string(1) "2" ["_lastloaded"]=> int(1606953917) } ["access"]=> array(3) { ["ra"]=> array(2) { ["/1"]=> array(1) { [7]=> int(7) } ["/1/2"]=> array(1) { [8]=> int(8) } } ["time"]=> int(1606953660) ["rsw"]=> array(0) { } } ["enrol"]=> array(2) { ["enrolled"]=> array(0) { } ["tempguest"]=> array(0) { } } }