CodeIgniter 2 image_lib->resize() error - Renders blank page and does not return an error message

Question

I'm trying to do something very simple but I can't see to make it work. For what it's worth, I'm currently testing on my MAMP dev machine, but get the same results from staging server (GoDaddy GridHost).

Here's what I want to do:

1. Upload an image specified by the user from a form.
2. Create a thumbnail of the uploaded image.

There is some extra database code in my example, but the script "errors" at the if( ! $this->image_lib->resize()) call. However, it causes the entire application to exit, rendering a blank page. The code never actually enters the if{} block.

function _upload_image(&$location, &$image = NULL)
{
    // Configure the initial full-sized image upload
    $upload_config = array(
        'upload_path' => "./uploads/users/{$this->viewer->id}/locations/{$location->id}/",
        'allowed_types' => 'jpg|jpeg|gif|bmp|png',
        'max_size' => 8192 // 8mb
    );

    $this->load->library('upload', $upload_config);

    // Upload failed
    if( ! $this->upload->do_upload('image'))
    {
        $this->errors = strip_tags($this->upload->display_errors());
        return FALSE;
    }

    // Get the uploaded file's metadata
    $data = $this->upload->data();

    // Change permissions of the uploaded file so that the image library can copy and resize it
    if(is_file($config['upload_path'] . $data['file_name']))
    {
        chmod($config['upload_path'] . $data['file_name'], 0777);
    }

    // If no existing image object was passed to this function, we are creating a brand new image
    if(is_null($image))
    {
        $image = new Image();
        $thumbnail = new Thumbnail();
    }
    else
    {
        $thumbnail = $image->thumbnail->get();  // Get the existing thumbnail
    }

    // Set the image object fields to save to the db
    $image->name = $data['file_name'];
    $image->mime_type = $data['file_type'];
    $image->extension = $data['file_ext'];
    $image->file_path = $data['file_path'];
    $image->full_path = $data['full_path'];
    $image->size = $data['file_size'];
    $image->width = $data['image_width'];
    $image->height = $data['image_height'];

    // Failed to save the image to the db
    if( ! $image->save())
    {
        $this->errors = array_merge($this->errors, array($image->error->string));
        return FALSE;
    }

    // Failed to save the location/image relationship in the db
    if( ! $location->save($image))
    {
        $this->errors = array_merge($this->errors, array($location->error->string));
        return FALSE;
    }

    // Configure options for the thumbnail
    $thumb_config = array(
        'image_library' => 'GD2',
        'source_image' => "./uploads/users/{$this->viewer->id}/locations/{$location->id}/{$image->name}",
        'create_thumb' => TRUE,
        'width' => 400,
        'height' => 300
    );

    $this->load->library('image_lib');
    $this->image_lib->initialize($thumb_config);

    // Failed to create the image thumbnail
    if( ! $this->image_lib->resize())
    {
        $this->errors = array_merge($this->errors, array($this->image_lib->display_errors()));
        return FALSE;
    }

    // Set the thumbnail object fields to save to the db
    $thumbnail->name = $data['raw_name'] . '_thumb' . $data['file_ext'];
    $thumbnail->file_path = $image->file_path;
    $thumbnail->full_path = $image->file_path . $thumbnail->name;

    // Failed to save the thumbnail to the db
    if( ! $thumbnail->save())
    {
        $this->errors = array_merge($this->errors, array($thumbnail->error->string));
        return FALSE;
    }

    // Failed to save the image/thumbnail relationship in the db
    if( ! $image->save($thumbnail))
    {
        $this->errors = array_merge($this->errors, array($image->error->string));
        return FALSE;
    }

    // Everything worked
    return TRUE;
}

The database interaction is handled by the DataMapper ORM, which I included for completeness, but I don't feel it is necessarily relevant to this issue. The function clearly fails at the call:

if( ! $this->image_lib->resize())

Answer 1

Have you set your application environment in the index.php bootstrap? It's worth setting it to development if you haven't already, this may make errors visible that would be hidden if set to testing/production.

define('ENVIRONMENT', 'development');

If that doesn't help diagnose the issue, in MAMP, go to the Server tab, click PHP and then View Log. This will open up the PHP error log file which will hopefully give you an idea of what's up.