When I try to upload an image or downloadable product

Upload a File for: test:
Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded
/administrator/components/com_virtuemart/classes/ps_main.php on line 1149

After setting the memory limit to 128M it timed out on the execution time.

Then I inserted some debug statements and it was clear
on line 1149 there is a recursive function which loads ALL the files in the directories starting from MAIN SITE, so all files in the entire joomla site are indexed.

Any idea how to fix this?

Rob

FIXED...
It seems that the product directory was unwritable to the script...