If when you say the file you're including is "external", meaning it's a URL, then yes. Check for the '
allow_url_fopen' and '
allow_url_include' settings on that host. See the PHP manual entry for
using remote files.
If you have no control over the matter, you might look at using
readfile() or
the cURL extension.
I also recommend you get into the habit of using
require_once() rather than include in almost every case. Why? Because the
include_once() or require_once() functions ensure that each file is only included once, so no recursion, and the require_once() (or
require()) adds the benefit of killing the script if the file isn't included.
Using the '@' error suppression symbol at the beginning of include() is a bit redundant - depending on your error_reporting setting, it will usually fail silently every time.