http error when uploading media

Hello,

I have seen a lot of posts on this topic but I haven’t found a solution that worked for me.

By far the most common wisdom said this:
Try changing the permissions on the wp-content directory to 766. If you still have problems, try 767, 775 or 777. Once your uploads are working, change the permissions on wp-content back to 755 again and check that everything still works OK.

which I tried and none of them worked. Or more specifically, I uploaded the media through the wordpress drag and drop and continued to get this. When I was in ftp changing file permissions I took a look in the uploads folder. Lo and behold, the file is there. When I go to do anything with the image however, it doesn’t cooperate. eg, there is no default size, different sizes aren’t selectable, etc.

Is there anyone else out there who has this issue and found a fix for it?

BTW: using WP 3.3.2 for some time now. This issue has only occurred recently and as far as I can remember is independent of any major changes like theme edits, plugin updates, or the like.

Thanks for reading!