11 replies to this topic

[bwelford]

I am somewhat baffled by the fact that one of my WordPress blogs (exactly the same as my other WP blogs as far as I know) will no longer allow me to upload images. I get the following error message.

“abcdef.jpg” has failed to upload due to an error
Unable to create directory /home/bwelford/public_html/seniormoneymemos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11. Is its parent directory writable by the server?

As I said, I have other 'parallel' WP blogs that have not given me this problem and I don't believe I've had problems in the past with this one.

Does anyone have suggestions on where to look for answers.

[DonnaFontenot]

Yep, the answer is right there in the error message. The folder isn't writable. For whatever reasons, the folder no longer has the correct permissions set. Go set the permissions via ftp on wp-content so that it's writable, and it should be all good.

[jonbey]

May not just be permissions. Could be PHP security set too high. I had this problem is Plesk. Somewhere I turned off PHP Safe Mode.
I changed something in the admin control panel but searching Google shows some php.ini modifications to turn it off.

Give that a whirl.

[bwelford]

That's why I'm scratching my head. The permissions for those folders are 0755 so it should be OK. Somehow I think it believes I am not the owner, so I'm going to have to found out why this does not behave like the other four. It's not a priority today, but just something else to add to the pile.

[jonbey]

Mine was the same, permissions were correct, it was the server blocking the PHP file transfer.

[DonnaFontenot]

I'd probably put in a support request with the host then. They can probably tell you pretty quickly what the issue is.

[Michael_Martinez]

I once saw that error while uploading an image that was larger than the limits I had set for my blog. I think it's kind of a ubiquitous warning (or perhaps a bug in the warning system -- I've upgraded Worpress a few times since then).

[jonbey]

If you have not checked the PHP Safe Mode settings, this seems to be the way there in cpanel:

1. Login to WHM.

2. Go into the Service Configuration menu and locate the PHP Configuration Editor.
3. From there you can set the various PHP settings such as disabling SAFE MODE.

[glyn]

Things i would checked:

If this WP site was restored from a backup Apache sometimes sets the owner to Apache, so you need to contact the host and ask them to reset ownership permissions.

Can you confirm to yourself that the permission setting has actually been set? IE CHMOD the uploads folder to 755 and then check the CHMOD setting by sending the command again (in something like Filezilla you will get a popup to set the comands and it will show to what the folder is curently set to), sometimes you can send the CHMOD change command but in fact it doesn't set it (for reasons as described above), I know I've missed this in the past.

Try changing the permission of the uploads folder to 775, and see if that works. If it does, send a message to your host and ask them why 755 won't work, if it does on other sites hosted on the same server.

I also saw this
"Just create /tmp folder in your wordpress directory and it should be fine - works for me :-)"
Source: http://wordpress.org...oad-not-working

Good luck

[lirys]

could it be the safety mode? at the host?

[bwelford]

Donna you were right. I had not realized that I had to make a change when my server arrangement was changed. Somehow the others had been changed but this one was not. My host is in the process of correcting this.

Thanks to all for suggestions. As Einstein said, it's usually best to go for the simplest answer that works, but it should not be simpler than that.

Edited by bwelford, 11 November 2011 - 08:49 PM.

[DonnaFontenot]

Glad it got figured out.