When I go directly to the URL of the image (http://www.cybermidi.com/news/media/shared/global/avatars/default_avatar_men.jpg) it gives me a 500 internal server error. You should probably check whether or not you've got the correct permissions set for your /media folder and images.

Have you tried to attach an image to a post and verify that it is displayed correctly? The uploaded images go to the /media folder by default, so we need to know if the same problem occurs with images uploaded to /media/blogs, for example.

Also, the standard package includes this file /media/sample.htaccess, if you renamed it to .htaccess and it contains any conflictive directive, a 500 error will be thrown, as in your case. Please verify that.

Finally, in some servers, depending on their configuration, the permissions applied to folders must be 755 and 644 for files, otherwise, an error 500 will be thrown.

Regards!

htaccess was the problem. There was a pre existing one which I deleted and renamed the sample to htaccess which resolved it

thanks!