Having trouble with GD2

I'm somewhat new to host gator, so my question may seem trivial, but I'm out of ideas.

I've got a PHP function to create thumbs from a series of jpeg files in a directory.

I'm getting results from a

print_r(gd_info());

statement, but the web page freezes with

$img = imagecreatefromjpeg($filename);

Checking the obvious, the $filename is good and image will open as a jpg. I'm guessing that gd_info results show that the gd lib is loaded and available. Checking the manual, the GD version needed is greater than GD 2.0.1 and HostGator is at 2.0.34.


Anyone got ideas on this?

Thanks,
Pat