Sheriff here. Could this be related to
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/c861964b596e1cea16e1763a5d3ebc829bfa687a
?

I cannot reproduce locally.

 Issue 898853  has been merged into this issue.

Very unlikely. Mentioned CL only changes flow when there is oobe configuration, but it is not loaded yet. UserImageManagerTest.ProfileImageDownloadDoesNotClobber does not have any code related to OOBE Configuration.

Note that failures are probably server-side related, as test log indicate:

[5358:5492:0924/152019.065558:ERROR:checkin_request.cc(219)] Failed to get checkin response. Fetcher failed. Retrying.
[5358:5492:0924/152019.161987:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(1058)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107
[5358:5492:0924/152019.210429:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(1058)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107
[5358:5358:0924/152019.237310:WARNING:oauth2_access_token_fetcher_impl.cc(84)] Could not reach Google Accounts servers: errno -107
[5358:6028:0924/152019.260845:WARNING:syncer_proto_util.cc(338)] Error posting from syncer: Response Code (bogus on error): -1 Content-Length (bogus on error): -1 Server Status: CONNECTION_UNAVAILABLE
[5358:6028:0924/152019.260920:ERROR:get_updates_processor.cc(242)] PostClientToServerMessage() failed during GetUpdates
[5358:5492:0924/152019.283738:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(1058)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107
[5358:5492:0924/152019.312999:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(1058)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107
[5358:5492:0924/152019.341280:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(1058)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107
[5358:5492:0924/152019.365355:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(1058)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107
[5358:5492:0924/152019.396376:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_impl.cc(1058)] handshake failed; returned -1, SSL error code 1, net_error -107


There are also no flakiness after 3 mentioned episodes, and there is also one that happened before CL was landed.

I am not sure on how do we resolve such cases when tests fail due to external services.

Browser tests shouldn't rely on external services being up. There must be some way to mock out the remote service.

Most browser tests block DNS requests for everything other than localhost:
https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/content/public/test/browser_test_base.cc?rcl=9cec94065ff28b18a4c31743ac55f7e687a8bd77&l=263

I'm not sure why these would hit real servers.

The following revision refers to this bug:
  https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/3fc763a4b26fbce6dee629c57fb3d2247679447f

commit 3fc763a4b26fbce6dee629c57fb3d2247679447f
Author: Evan Stade <estade@chromium.org>
Date: Thu Oct 25 20:41:40 2018

Disable UserImageManagerTest.ProfileImageDownloadDoesNotClobber

often times out on the bots, although usually passes on the 2nd or 3rd
try.

Bug: 888784
Change-Id: Ibf626f5701dea87053b0ea1dddf81b0cfe1e65f5
Reviewed-on: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/1299200
Reviewed-by: James Cook <jamescook@chromium.org>
Commit-Queue: Evan Stade <estade@chromium.org>
Cr-Commit-Position: refs/heads/master@{#602842}
[modify] https://crrev.com/3fc763a4b26fbce6dee629c57fb3d2247679447f/chrome/browser/chromeos/login/users/avatar/user_image_manager_browsertest.cc

This issue has an owner, a component and a priority, but is still listed as untriaged or unconfirmed. By definition, this bug is triaged. Changing status to "assigned". Please reach out to me if you disagree with how I've done this.