[EDIT 12:13EST]
IGNORE THE POST BELOW.
IT DID WORK AFTER I RESET THE FEATURED IMAGE.
It was not working originally because I had put some debugging output into phpimage.php, and it was rendering the image output invalid, so it was just showing up blank.
Still, I think the method I proposed for getting the path to th image might work more universally. In other words, I replaced:
$thumbabs = base64_encode(get_attached_file(get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID)));
with
$md = maybe_unserialize( wp_get_attachment_metadata ( get_post_thumbnail_id( $post->ID ) ) );
$thumbabs = base64_encode( WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/uploads/' . $md['file'] );
Maybe you can come up with a better way to do this.
Thanks again!
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responding to your last post, I tried uploading a new JPG to the post and set it as the new featured image, and the thumb was still broken, but when I opened the image in a new tab to look at the errors, I got the blank screen.
The URL returned was
http://155.43.82.113/t3/wp-content/plugins/special-recent-posts/lib/phpimage.php?width=100&height=100&rotation=no&file=L2hvbWUvamFtZXMvd29ya3NwYWNlL3QzL3dwLWNvbnRlbnQvdXBsb2Fkcy8yMDExLzA3LzI1ODYyNF8xMDE1MDE5NDUwMTc2ODExMF81MDE3MjMxMDlfNzExODQwMl81MDkyOTY1X28uanBn
When I decode that file string, it is /home/james/workspace/t3/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/258624_10150194501768110_501723109_7118402_5092965_o.jpg - this path is correct. I think my proposed method to get the path is better ... perhaps more universal, but at least this gets us a little closer.
So now the question is: what's happening in phpimage?