A list off all the rpms installed on my system can be viewed at: http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/rpms_installed.txt

Cannot reproduce.

Here is a simple script:
<?php
$file = 
'https://secure20.nexcess.net/thewordsmith.info/images/event_images/2010-11-
20/The%20Lake%20Effect%20Festival/Lake%20Effect%20Hip%20Hop%20Flyer.jpg';

imagepng(imagecreatefromjpeg($file), 'a1.png');
imagepng(imagecreatefromstring(file_get_contents($file)), 'a2.png');

a1 and a2 are just fine. Please try this script as well.

You couldnot reporduce the error because you apparently only looked at the live server. Please look at the DEV server.

http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/resize_event_pic.php?event_num=27&new_width=100&new_height=143

file_get_contents is apparently not reading the entire file.

Well, as I said, the code works. If for some reason it does not work on another 
server, then you have to verify its configuration.

Have you tried my example on the dev server? Or any other where you met this bug?

Unfortunately your code does not work. Look at test1 & test2.php at:
http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/test/

Notice that a2.png is not created in:
http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/link_to_tmp/

Test 2 is a short version of my own code.

I will email you the SSH info and you can go at it. The PHPINFO for my dev box is available at:

http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/php/

Sorry but I can't do it now.

Which version of libjpeg and PHP do you use on the servers where this code fails?

I am using libjpeg-6b-46fc.i686, libpng-1.2.44-1.fc13.i686, gd-2.0.35-11.fc13.i686, and PHP-5.3.6. Hmmm,jpg is a beta verision. May be that is my problem. I will attempt to rollback the libjpeg package andlet you know what happens.

libjpeg-6b-46.fc12.i686.rpm is the only available package. That sucks.

Which php version is used on these servers?

On the DEV Server php-5.3.6 is used. See http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/php/

On the Live Server php-5.1.6 is used. See https://secure20.nexcess.net/thewordsmith.info/php/

Yesterday I reinstalled gd, gd-devel, libjpeg* and libpng* with no success. Also talked to several peopple via irc chat. This is a problem with libraries, PHP build, etc. I do not know how to fix this problem. You are welcome to SSH login and try to fix this problem.

I won't do it sorry. The php code has no bug and works just fine. If you need 
support to fix your server, you may try to ask your ISP admins instead.

No bug in php > bogus.

I know that the coding works. The problem is either with PHP or the libraries. How do you know that this is not a PHP problem? Just because the code is know to work does not mean that the PHP build is not experiencing problems. I am the ISP of the dev box.

The code is outputing errors. Look at:

http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/test/

Notice that a2.png is not created in:
http://thewordsmith.dyndns.info/link_to_tmp/

It is not PHP, it works just fine on any machine I tried.

I am not the only person with that problem. Read:

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11195

http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=29482

http://drupal.org/node/307028

Totally unrelated issues.

$img_info  = getimagesize("$calendar_info->event_img");

//Create a smaller image pallet
$thumb = imagecreatetruecolor($new_width, $new_height);// or die("Could create true color image. Error on file: " . __FILE__ . " Line: " . __LINE__);
	
// Output
if($img_info[2] == 1){
	$source = imagecreatefromgif("$calendar_info->event_img");// or die("Could create image from string. Error on file: " . __FILE__ . " Line: " . __LINE__);
	imagecopyresampled($thumb, $source, 0, 0, 0, 0, $new_width, $new_height, $img_info[0], $img_info[1]);// or die("Could not copy image Error on file: " . __FILE__ . " Line: " . __LINE__);

	header("Content-Length: " . filesize("$calendar_info->event_img"));
	header("Content-type: " . image_type_to_mime_type(IMAGETYPE_GIF));
	imagegif($thumb);
}
elseif($img_info[2] == 2){
	$source = imagecreatefromjpeg("$calendar_info->event_img");// or die("Could create image from string. Error on file: " . __FILE__ . " Line: " . __LINE__);
	imagecopyresampled($thumb, $source, 0, 0, 0, 0, $new_width, $new_height, $img_info[0], $img_info[1]);// or die("Could not copy image Error on file: " . __FILE__ . " Line: " . __LINE__);

	header("Content-Length: " . filesize("$calendar_info->event_img"));
	header("Content-type: " . image_type_to_mime_type(IMAGETYPE_JPEG));
	imagejpeg($thumb);
}
elseif($img_info[2] == 3){
	$source = imagecreatefrompng("$calendar_info->event_img");// or die("Could create image from string. Error on file: " . __FILE__ . " Line: " . __LINE__);
	imagecopyresampled($thumb, $source, 0, 0, 0, 0, $new_width, $new_height, $img_info[0], $img_info[1]);// or die("Could not copy image Error on file: " . __FILE__ . " Line: " . __LINE__);

	header("Content-Length: " . filesize("$calendar_info->event_img"));
	header("Content-type: " . image_type_to_mime_type(IMAGETYPE_PNG));
	imagepng($thumb);
}
imagedestroy($thumb);
?>

I am closing this issue. Imagecreatefromstring does not handle large images very well. I had to rewrite my code as shown above.