I'm sorry gossip isn't working for you. There are a few shortcomings with gossip that I intend to fix in the near future, but here are some things you can try:

Make sure you are letting gossip populate metadata:

1. Settings > uncheck "Offline Mode"

2. Settings > check "Automatically Fetch Metadata", "Fetch Avatars", and "Check NIP-05"

Make sure gossip is using reasonable relays to get this data:

3. Relays > Configure > tick 'Read' for several well known highly trafficked relays such as nostr-pub.wellorder.net, nos.lol, relay.damus.io, etc.

4. Relays > Configure > tick 'Discover' for the wss://purplepag.es/ relay