Joel,

I could be wrong and hopefully someone will correct me if I am but I think your host has "allow_url_fopen" turned off. It is one of the functions some hosts disable because they think it posses a security risk. Open www.yoursite/admin/phpinfo.php and search for the term "allow_url_fopen" and see if it is off. If it is off that is your problem. There are two solutions.. if your host allows it put this in a php.ini file in your root:

allow_url_fopen = On

If your host see more does NOT allow it then you might have to switch hosts :-(

thanks
Mike