I know this thread is very old but I may or may not be having a similar issue.
I have installed a MediaWiki extension that can display uml diagrams.
It uses MetaUML, ImageMagick, etc.
The problem is that the extension generates a png image on the fly and while rendering
the page the extesnion inserts the following code
<img src='C:\Apache2\htdocs\wiki\images\math\tmp\uml-03401e206d389c784552fd8765d1d246.png'>
Which only displays the unknown gif I believe that the browser doesn't have a permission to the folder.
I have tried allowing access, deleting all the .htaccess files (test environment) and between Google and me I can't seem
to figure out the issue.
Hope you still around.
Thanks,
Steve