CGSmartImage and finfo_open error

[severtki]

This morning I upgraded CMS to 1.11.7 from 1.11.4 -- upgrade went normally and site was fully functioning.
Next, I upgraded CGSmartImage and its dependencies (not sure previous versions, but current version is now 1.12).

Now, calls to CGSmartImage are broken, e.g.:
{cms_module module="CGSmartImage" src="uploads/news/id`$post`/`$img->value`" filter_resizetofit='475,350' alt=$entry->title|cms_escape:htmlall}
results in an error message:
Problem with host setup. the finfo_open function does not exist

I've searched on here and googled for possible causes for this and I can confirm this is php version 5.3.27, and it is a linux server (NOT Windows). Yes, this function is a standard php function and SHOULD exist, and it did in fact exist immediately prior to the upgrade to CGSmartImage (assuming prior version of CGSmartImage also used this function?). Nothing changed in the server (shared host) side in the meantime.

Could anyone give me some pointers for what I can look for to resolve this?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[calguy1000]

some hosts stupidly don't include this extension in their 'custom builds'. contact your host. it's a standard part of PHP now.

[severtki]

Ah -- so previous versions of CGSmartImage did not reference the Fileinfo extension of PHP? I've written to our hosting company, and so hope they will be understanding. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to revert the site to our backup and stay on the older version of CGSmartImage for the time being.

[webform]

Have the same problem with my host, and they won't fix the problem.

My workaround was to set "Image Embedding Mode" to "None" in CGSmartImage settings.