Images not shown immediately after upload or during display pages

This is the first time I've had an issue like this with imagefields/drupal.

Modules and Settings:

Drupal 6.15
Imagefield 3.2
Filefield 3.2
Pathauto 1.2
Path redirect 1.0-beta6
Views 2.8
permissions on tmp and files 777
public download method
imagefield configuration as default

expected results:

I go to edit a node.
I find the cck imagefield that I am attempting to upload to
I find the image and proceed with the upload
the "remove" button appears, but no thumbnail image appears to the left of the little vertical rule that separates the button from the thumbnail.
I save the node and view the home page, where I have a views slideshow.
Using Firebug, I can see that the slideshow block is being loaded, I can pinpoint the img tag that holds the image, and I can find the src for the location of the image, but when using firebugs hover-image feature the image never ends up loading.
Using an FTP client, I can look into the sites/default/files/frontbanner folder and I can see the image in there (which is the path I set for pathauto), and I can download the image and I can see it, but i cannot delete it or change permissions on it, or the directories above.

Any ideas?