Imagecache fails when in Off-line mode

I spent a solid few hours trying to figure out why Imagecache simply would not work. I went through all the troubleshooting steps in the excellent Troubleshooting guide, but still nothing. All my htaccess settings were right, my directories were writable, temp and files folders were set correctly -- but still, nothing. Imagecache simply wouldn't generate the cached versions of the images.

Then I realized all my problems were related to the site being in "Off-line" mode. Despite a logged in admin having full access to a site in "off-line mode", Imagecache wont create cached versions of files, and so while an admin can access all the content, if the content is meant to create a cached (ie. resized) version of an image, it fails and displays nothing. My guess is this is due to how Imagecache works with Drupal's rewrite rules, and how Drupal uses these rules when in "Off-line Mode".

I've set this as a bug, but have no idea if it's a fixable one. I just wanted to make sure it was in the issue queue so that some other poor soul doesn't have to waste as much time as I did trying to figure this out.

Solution: Switch to Online Mode. (only a half-solution really).

- Ryan