The problem ended up being entirely different from what we had described (it was not a code error but a server configuration error).
Many other workers had suggested other server configuration changes, but **TakeReal** got it right the first time.
A pleasure and we hope to work with him in the future on the many projects we have in mind.
Link to the original freelance project: https://www.freelancer.com/projects/3359326.html
Freelance Project categories: ASP, MySQL, PHP, SQL