Wordpress loop media by "uploaded By" - php

Question

I have a webpage that I want to display images that are uploaded by a certain author.
In the backend if I look at media, each image has an 'Uploaded By' attribute, and then it says the authors name.
(source: discoveryourwonder.com)
I've tried using this loop:
<?php
// The Query
$args = array(
'author' => $author_name_variable, // Replace with author id
'post_status' => 'any',
'post_type' => 'attachment'
);
$the_query = new WP_Query( $args );
// The Loop
if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
echo '<ul>';
while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
$the_query->the_post();
echo '<li>' . the_content() . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';
} else {
// no posts found
}
/* Restore original Post Data */
wp_reset_postdata();
?>
It is very buggy. Some authors it will show every media file, others none; the rest are just inaccurate. It's a real blind shot :/
The goal is to loop through all the media files, and then post the_content() of all files with the corresponding Uploaded By name.

Answer 1

I would be grateful if someone could comment as to why an ID is more reliable than a slug in the 'author' argument.
I figured out a solution. Apparently the 'author' argument does not like usernames, so I converted it to ID and it works now. I used get_user_by( 'slug', $username ); to get all the information of the particular username, and then assigned that array to a variable. I then filtered the variable to only use the ID and passed that through the arguments.
Here's the working loop:
<?php
// The Query
$profileid = get_user_by( 'slug', $username );
$args = array(
'author' => $profileid->id, // Replace with author id
'post_status' => 'inheret',
'post_type' => 'attachment'
);
$the_query = new WP_Query( $args );
// The Loop
if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
echo '<ul>';
while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
$the_query->the_post();
echo '<li>' . the_content() . '</li>';
}
echo '</ul>';
} else {
// no posts found
}
/* Restore original Post Data */
wp_reset_postdata();
?>