[azsquall]

thanks!1
i actually had looked at that, but found nothing suspicious.
File class_bbcode.php, around line 560

// we have to get the smilies from the database
			DEVDEBUG('querying for smilies');

			$this->registry->smiliecache = array();

			$smilies = $this->registry->db->query_read("
				SELECT *, LENGTH(smilietext) AS smilielen
				FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "smilie
				ORDER BY smilielen DESC

From there i can see the code is extracting from the database all info about smilies.
Then

		while ($smilie = $this->registry->db->fetch_array($smilies))
			{
				if (!$do_html)
				{
					$find = htmlspecialchars_uni(trim($smilie['smilietext']));
				}
				else
				{
					$find = trim($smilie['smilietext']);
				}

				// if you change this HTML tag, make sure you change the smilie remover in code/php/html tag handlers!
				if ($this->is_wysiwyg())
				{
					$replace = "<img src=\"$smilie[smiliepath]\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" title=\"" . htmlspecialchars_uni($smilie['title']) . "\" smilieid=\"$smilie[smilieid]\" class=\"inlineimg\" />";
				}
				else
				{
					$replace = "<img src=\"$smilie[smiliepath]\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" title=\"" . htmlspecialchars_uni($smilie['title']) . "\" class=\"inlineimg\" />";
				}

				$sc["$find"] = $replace;

				$this->registry->smiliecache["$smilie[smilieid]"] = $smilie;
			}
		}

		return $sc;
	}

Look like it does get the smilies' locations directly from database. Field [smiliepath] is filled up with URLs, such as http://image.domain.com/image1.gif

The smilie does show up in text-editor mode, but as long as I submit the post the smilie will be gone. and when I tried to edit that same post, the smilie was not there either.

any insight will be great!!!