I didn't originally set up this forum, but the control panel is set for GD2. I can tell you that up until yesterday, the images were working correctly. I don't believe we changed anything having to do with gallery settings, unless something got clobbered inadvertently. Kinda frustrating.
You should ask your webhost what updates they installed within the last few days; things don't just stop working
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The non-latin character would affect the shoutbox from loading ANY data, so if it actually shows posts in it then that's not the issue.