Question

I am trying to obtain and display a remote image from a url in PHP. Most images work, however some images redirect for example:

http://thundafunda.com/33/World-tour/download/Grand%20Canal,%20Venice,%20Italy%20pictures.jpg

The image would load and then disappear. I am using an IMG tag and placing that url as the source. Any idea?

Answer 1

Using this portion of code, that doesn’t do anything except display an <img> tag :

$url = 'http://thundafunda.com/33/World-tour/download/Grand%20Canal,%20Venice,%20Italy%20pictures.jpg';
echo '<img src="' . $url . '" alt="" />';

I get the same kind of behavior you are describing : the image is not displayed.

If I take a look at what’s happening on the network level, using Firebug, I see this :

_{(source: pascal-martin.fr)}

Basically :

• A request is made to load the image
• The image loads
• But the response comes with :
  • a 302 HTTP status code
  • That redirects to the URL given in the Location header of the response — which points to an HTML page
• So, the browser follows that redirection
• and loads an HTML page

Which, of course, cannot be displayed in an <img> tag.

---

If you do exactly the same test, disabling the Referer (some Firefox extensions can do that), you’ll see the image is displayed properly — and Firebug says :

_{(source: pascal-martin.fr)}

Note that there is no Referer header, this time, in the Request sent from my Browser.

Considering this, I would bet there is some kind of anti-hot-linking protection that’s been setup by the website hosting that image…

And there is not much you can do, except host the file on your own server — if the licence allows you to.