Making the Media Library F.O.B.A.R

who else but me manages to completely mess up the 5.3 media library less than 2 hours after installing a new site? it's a gift. pure talent. for some strange reason i now get a broken image instead of a working one. but: this is only for the published site and the actual image editor, when browsing the media library the image appears and everything's neat and nice and cozy. so, right now to make images work i've resorted to clearing the assigned image from the item i want to publish so that it doesn't show up in the image field, and then re-enter only the text value of the path - making sure not to look it up. needless to say this is -extremely- frustrating.. UPDATE: well, it seems that it's not outputting the db parameter (&db=master) anymore when it's 'visually' assigned. frustration just got a touch of annoyance.. P.