no, I never encountered that. Check that the plugin was uploaded completely
maybe that is the reason

OK, so I figured out that the issue was that securimage wasn't finding the font file. 

I checked the original securimage files from phpcaptcha.org and found that by adding in this line, the ttf file would display.

$img->ttf_file        = 'ahgbold.ttf';

There was alot of trial and error in this, of course, but at least the problem is resolved. Thanks to the original developer for making this very useful plugin.

The font wasn't missing, but the original script wasn't picking it up, even though line 531 is present as you noted below.  I'm no PHP expert, but the fix I implemented worked, so I'm thrilled, and maybe this will help someone else down the road if they encounter the same issue.

Thanks again!

Connie,

I certainly didn't mean to offend you - I double checked the file and you're right - my FTP program had the "force lowercase remote filenames" set to ON, which means it would have converted the file to all lowercase letters during the upload. At any rate it doesn't matter since the file which is NOW working on the server has the statement in mixed case exactly as you have it, and the file itself is still named all lower case.  And it works.

I really do appreciate the time you have taken to respond to my question, and again, I hope that you do not find offense with what I hope is a logical, technical discussion aimed at sharing and learning. I did not say the script is faulty, only that it didn't work when I uploaded it, and I had to make a change to get it to work.  How you can be offended by that is beyond me, but if you are, again, please accept my sincere apology for any miscommunication which may have occured.

Thank you again for your assistance, and have a great day.