Hey all - I posted about this issue in the Apple Support forums and all I got was “repair disk and repair permissions” which is really just a catch-all for when someone doesn’t have any better or better tailored ideas.  Nonetheless, I did go ahead and repair my HDD and then repaired permissions.  Suffice to say it did nothing.  So… anyone here have any ideas:

I know this will seem very vague and could have any of a number of causes, but I am just totally stumped on this. On my MBP (2008, OS 10.6.6), some images and pages in web browsers simply will not load. No “broken image” icon, just nothing there - a blank. This is not a Safari issue, as any browser I try on the machine (Firefox, Chrome) gives the same result. This problem has been going on for some time; I believe it predates Snow Leopard, though all my systems are up-to-date as of now.

On my 2008 iMac (OS 10.6.6 as well), the same images and pages load fine!

For example, I use WordPress for my blog. If I write a post in the web version on my MBP, the icons for adding media simply do not show up (There’s simply text saying Upload/Insert, then an empty gap. There are supposed to be icons for pictures, video, audio, etc). Interestingly, though there are no icons there, apparently the LINKS are still there, just invisible. Because rolling over the gap, I can see the various links in the status bar. So if I click in the right spot of the empty gap, I get taken to a page where I should be able to upload a picture. But then we hit the next iteration of the problem: the linked-to page doesn’t load, either. Just a blank page. This happens in any browser I try on the MBP.

On my iMac, everything shows up and looks fine in all browsers.

So there’s obviously some global software difference between the MBP and the iMac; for whatever reason, some rendering(?) technology is being “blocked” on the MBP.  But I see no configuration differences of note between the systems in System Preferences or app support etc.

Any ideas? I know this comes across as incredibly vague…

1. try a second user account
2. try reinstalling the latest COMBO update
3. try clearing caches and rebooting
4. try a different internet connection (somebody else’s house)

good luck

Thanks for the ideas.  Nothing worked, unfortunately.  Actually, one thing did—Opera.  The images/pages/etc that won’t load in any of the other browsers do in Opera.  Go figure.  I don’t know what under-the-hood process is working with Opera that won’t with Safari, Firefox, or Chrome, but at least I have a workaround!