Attachment Problem - HELP!

[dustrho]

I am having a pretty big problem right now with attachments and I desperately need your help.

I run a Star Wars collecting site and forums, and I recently upgraded from YabbSE to SMF with no problems... until now.  Our front page contains news from around the globe, and our forums are more dedicated to collectors and fanatics who just want to talk about Star Wars.  As an Administrator of the forums, I use a special section that only staff can view, to upload GIFs and JPGs that will be used in news posts on our front page.  I've been doing this now for over a year with no problems.  After upgrading to SMF I noticed a major change... all the attachments can't be seen by outsiders unless you have access to our forums (note that you must be a registered member before you can use the forums).

So if you look at our front page you'll see some images down the center portion (where the news is posted) that don't show up and are replaced by the ALT text that was used.  Secondly, I've posted a few times in this forum and linked screenshots that are stored in my attachments directory in our forums, and those don't show up at all.

The attachments are supposed to be pointing to a JPG file, but yet they're pointing to this URL...

     http://www.sandtroopers.com/yabbse/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=813.0;id=572;image

It should be directly linked like this so that outsiders can view the attachments/screenshots...

     http://www.sandtroopers.com/yabbse/attachments/forums_20050301f2.gif

Why is it converting the image sourcing to a web page?  Can you not make directly links to the JPGs that are uploaded as attachments?

Please help!!!

[[Unknown]]

I've been doing this now for over a year with no problems.  After upgrading to SMF I noticed a major change... all the attachments can't be seen by outsiders unless you have access to our forums (note that you must be a registered member before you can use the forums).

This is for security reasons; if you post an attachment in a members only board, guests should not have access to it, even if the know the filename.  This is possible if you don't put the file under public_html.

Why is it converting the image sourcing to a web page?  Can you not make directly links to the JPGs that are uploaded as attachments?

You can, if you like, but that necessitates not having attachments outside public_html, and more importantly having a possible security problem if you ever post attachments you don't want to be public.

-[Unknown]