Magento 1.7 - Product Import - Images do not load - magento

Question

I have been trying to import products into Magento and images. The products are being imported and created properly but the images to not get imported.
I am aware of the basics of importing as I have done it in the past but cannot figure out what the issue is and what to do next.
some notes how and what I did:
I am aware to add a "/" before the image name
image name is case sensitive
upload images in media/import folder
media folder to be 777
Tried different folders like var/import or
media/catalog/product/import
Removed the .htcaccess file in media
Flushed cache
when i upload manually an image on a product it does show up properly
i tried specifying the _media_attribute_id in a column as 88 maybe
that should help but it didn't

Answer 1

If you have a Mage_Catalog_Model_Product, all you need to do is this:
$fn = '/absolute/path/to/image.jpg';
$types = array('thumbnail', 'small_image', 'image'); // or null if you already have the product's thumbnail, small image, and image set
$move = true; // move the source file, don't leave it sitting around
$exclude = false; // enabled in product view
$label = 'Turquoise';
$product->addImageToMediaGallery($fn, $types, $move, $exclude); // Strictly speaking, only the first parameter is required
if(!empty($label)) {
$gallery = $product->getData('media_gallery');
$gallery_img = array_pop($gallery);
$gallery_img['label'] = $label;
array_push($gallery['images'], $gallery_img);
$product->setData('media_gallery', $gallery);
}
$product->save();

Answer 2

I have faced the same problem while uploading product image. And i tested many methods to figure that out. But nothing helped me. At last in one of the tutorial I have seen that the image name and the sku name has to be same. with the extension of file extension. So i followed it and by God's grace it worked. You may try that also. It worked for me. I had spent almost one full day to figure that out.