image crop area preview. Requires mouse interaction

1. fresh install of wordpress, version 5.3
2. PHP 7.4
3. Theme: GeneratePress 2.4.1
4. Plugins: Insert Pages 3.5.1; To Top 2.0
5. Media Handling: WP_Image_Editor_GD, imagemagick version not available (Not installed?)
6. Server: Windows Server 2016 IIS 10.0
7. DB: MySQL 7.4.0
8. File system Perms: 755 (have tried 775 and 777, just to test, back to 755)

When I try to add a logo to my header using Appearance > Customize > Site Identity and select either Logo or Site Icon I get a broken image in the left corner and that message: ‘image crop area preview. Requires mouse interaction’

When I try to add an image to a page the image is a broken image.

I’ve been through every doc on the web. I’ve removed all the white space and blank lines from functions.php and the other one. I’ve updated PHP from 7.2.1 to 7.4 and verified it is running. I’ve changed the permissions on the folders to make sure IIS_IUSR and IUSR have access to the folder.

any ideas?