title: Get base product image in Magento
body: <p>I want to get <strong>base</strong> product image in Magento to resize it and display in cart sidebar.</p>
  
  <p>Unfortunatelly this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>echo $this-&gt;helper('catalog/image')-&gt;init($_product, 'image')-&gt;resize(38, 38);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>prints Magento placeholder image.</p>
  
  <p>Base image is set for this product properly. Small image and thumbnail works great.</p>
  
  <p>No idea what's going on.</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong>
  Solution:
  Get full product data this way:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$_product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')-&gt;load($_item-&gt;getProduct()-&gt;getId());
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and then use it as you wish:</p>
  
  <pre><code>echo $this-&gt;helper('catalog/image')-&gt;init($_product, 'image')-&gt;resize(38, 38);
  </code></pre>