Thank you for the thoughtful response.
I am working with my web hosting company to resolve the permissions problem with the WP upload app. Hopefully that will also resolve the current problem.
What I don’t understand is why it was working before the Permalink/.htaccess edit.
I am assuming it is b/c it was working just barely before and any perturbation just magnified the fact that info is missing in the db, as you cite above?
I will let you know when I get the problem resolved or if I need more assistance.
Thanks again.