TimThumb not able to load images on Rackspace

Question

So, we are using Linux, Apache, PHP 5.4.

I'm using Wordpress 3.5, which is where our problems started. I'm also using a theme from ThemeFuse.

I had to revert back to a really old version of TimThumb because the latest version doesnt seem to pleased with the PHP 5.4 or Wordpress 3.5.

Does anyone have any suggestion for getting v2.8.10 or v.2.8.11 to work under Wordpress 3.5 using PHP 5.4. I have it running and working on our development site, but when i moved the website to the live domain, it broke so there is one section on my site where the images won't load.

I am just wondering if there is a known issue with either Wordpress 3.5 or PHP 5.4.

When i go to the page that uses TimThumb I see broken images on the page. Right clicking and open the image in a new window gives me further details.

The error message says that TimThumb can't find the image eventhough when i take a the url from ?src parameter and open that url up in a browser, the image loads fine.

As a temporary solution, I've reverted back to a really, really old version of timthumb. This is not the best solution because I know this version is vulnerable. So i need to work out a final solution in the meantime.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Answer 1

Old question but I'm going to post an answer here as I've just had issues with this. This might not answer everyone's TimThumb issues but it solved mine. I followed the trouble shooting guide at Binary Moon and had no joy. Managed to find this thread here on Themeforest;

http://themeforest.net/forums/thread/tim-thumb-problem/32860

The comment by Olegnax is the key. It's possibly a security config on the server which the hosts will have set (but the operative you deal with at the support desk might very well not know about). If you receive a 500 Internal Server Error message on images resized by TimThumb, try the following:

1. Set the file permission on timthumb.php to 700 (read, write, and execute for owner only).
2. Check the cache directory (folder) permissions. Setting it to 777 will give you a 500 – Internal Server Error. Set it to 711.