Image styles do not work I am struggling to find a solution for image styles not getting generated. The original pictures get uploaded to the server but no styles or thumbnails are generated. 

I have checked folder permission and set it to 775 and even 777 (temporarily) for the /styles/ and its subfolders. 

I even set $conf['image_allow_insecure_derivatives'] to TRUE. 

Yet I still get access denied for the anonymous users (not verified when I upload images and no styles or thumbnails). 

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Drupal version 8.5.3 Local dev with Aquia Dev Desktop.

I've tried all combinations with .htaccess (root, in /files and in styles) with no success.

Also tried with:

$config['image.settings']['suppress_itok_output'] = TRUE;
$config['image.settings']['allow_insecure_derivatives'] = TRUE;


No results.

Even though I had a settings.local.php solution was to uncommment this line in settings.php:

$settings['file_public_path'] = 'sites/default/files';