Woody!,
Sending you a message as well to make sure you take notice as this might be the solution.

In frustration I started to read this whole thread yet again and came across a post by babygekko.

First post about "glob" didn't work for me but in trying combinations I got it to work (at least more than once, time and continued tests will tell if I'm truly ready to go) on my end.

All I did was:
"...I also had to delete the ob_start() and ob_end_clean() from captcha_img.php. Things work out perfectly right after that." - thanks babygekko!

Give it a shot!