diff --git a/include/network.php b/include/network.php
index 5a36bd6a00..d2732e0393 100644
--- a/include/network.php
+++ b/include/network.php
@@ -819,12 +819,12 @@ function add_fcontact($arr,$update = false) {
 }
 
 
-function scale_external_images($s, $include_link = true, $scale_replace = false) {
+function scale_external_images($srctext, $include_link = true, $scale_replace = false) {
 
 	$a = get_app();
 
 	// Picture addresses can contain special characters
-	$s = htmlspecialchars_decode($s);
+	$s = htmlspecialchars_decode($srctext);
 
 	$matches = null;
 	$c = preg_match_all('/\[img.*?\](.*?)\[\/img\]/ism',$s,$matches,PREG_SET_ORDER);
@@ -846,7 +846,9 @@ function scale_external_images($s, $include_link = true, $scale_replace = false)
 				$scaled = str_replace($scale_replace[0], $scale_replace[1], $mtch[1]);
 			else
 				$scaled = $mtch[1];
-			$i = fetch_url($scaled);
+			$i = @fetch_url($scaled);
+			if(! $i)
+				return $srctext;
 
 			$cachefile = get_cachefile(hash("md5", $scaled));
 			if ($cachefile != '') {
diff --git a/index.php b/index.php
index 8abca2eb82..8e2376e918 100644
--- a/index.php
+++ b/index.php
@@ -414,10 +414,7 @@ if(!$a->theme['stylesheet'])
 	$stylesheet = current_theme_url();
 else
 	$stylesheet = $a->theme['stylesheet'];
-// this creates hundreds of compiled templates, when all we really want is a string replace.
-// $a->page['htmlhead'] = replace_macros($a->page['htmlhead'], array('$stylesheet' => $stylesheet));
-
-$a->page['htmlhead'] = str_replace('$stylesheet',$stylesheet,$a->page['htmlhead']);
+$a->page['htmlhead'] = replace_macros($a->page['htmlhead'], array('$stylesheet' => $stylesheet));
 
 $page    = $a->page;
 $profile = $a->profile;