Displaying image from database corrupts CI session

[eluser]skunkbad[/eluser]
[quote author="pickupman" date="1312703272"]There's nothing showing from the code above where you are writing/reading from the session. At some point are you trying to save the base64 string for the profile image in the users session? If so, would the user_data column need to be made bigger, or have you tried that to eliminate that as an issue.[/quote]

No, that's another confusing aspect to the problem. The image has nothing to do with the session. It's not being stored there, and not being retrieved from there.