Looking at the latest dev this might have to do with the newly introduced caching that has separated realname_make_name() into two functions and the $links fetching has been moved to the new function _realname_make_name() while the use of $links remains in realname_make_name()
Comments
Comment #1
nancydruThis is probably because of not using user_load any more. I will have to do some digging.
Comment #2
voxpelli commentedLooking at the latest dev this might have to do with the newly introduced caching that has separated realname_make_name() into two functions and the $links fetching has been moved to the new function _realname_make_name() while the use of $links remains in realname_make_name()
Comment #3
voxpelli commentedI have added a probably related issue: #518862: Static cache in realname_make_name() broken in dev
Comment #4
nancydrumarking as duplicate of the referenced issue.