Wordpress plugin install: Could not create directory

Question

I'm using WordPress on centos 6.

I try to install a plugin. But I got this error:

Installing Plugin: bbPress 2.5.9 Downloading install package from https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/bbpress.2.5.9.zip…

Unpacking the package…

Could not create directory.

How can I resolve this?

P/S: I run this command:

sudo -u root touch /var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/test.txt

and it works. But I still get that error.

test.txt is not a directory well it might be stupid what I write right now, but check if you can create a directory here. (just to make sure). — MindRoller, May 11 '16 at 08:47

score 130 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 30 '18 at 19:28

130

You only need to change the access permissions for your WordPress Directory:

chown -R www-data:www-data your-wordpress-directory

edited Nov 30 '18 at 19:28

Clyff

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answered Mar 21 '18 at 11:52

asb14690

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your-wordpress-directory = "wp-content" – mallik1055 Oct 22 '18 at 10:20
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In my case since I'm on a Mac it was `chown -R _www:_www wp-content`, actually `sudo chown -R _www:_www wp-content`. – Jason Swett Nov 27 '18 at 21:33
"your-wordpress-directory" does not tell me which directory is needed for plugins. Changing ownership of every directory in my Wordpress installation is unsafe, overkill, and may break other things. – felwithe Jan 30 '19 at 17:05
felwithe, the directory needed for plugins changes when the wordpress directory changes. `your-wordpress-directory` signifies the place where you placed wordpress on your server. – kevr Apr 13 '20 at 00:32
this is a bad practice and should be avoid. – Leandro Bardelli Apr 30 '22 at 16:07

score 87 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 22 '19 at 21:27

87

You can fix this by using the following commands. You should first be in the root folder of Wordpress.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data wp-content/plugins/
sudo chmod 775 wp-content

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data wp-content/

edited Jan 22 '19 at 21:27

Kirby

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answered Dec 26 '18 at 10:45

Azam Alvi

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This should be the answer, because it tells us which directories to fix and how to fix them. – felwithe Jan 30 '19 at 17:03
1

It worked for me. If you purged apache2 and wordpress on ubuntu , you have re-apply those permissions – Kemal Atik Dec 08 '19 at 18:55
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THIS ANSWER IS WORKED FOR ME – gsm Jan 19 '21 at 04:44
1

Thanks! Worked for me. I'm using a WordPress docker container in Windows 10 WSL2. – sybozz Mar 24 '21 at 19:50
1

It's working for me.. Upvote from my side.. – Naren Verma Jul 04 '23 at 09:59
Today i tried the same setting and I am not able to access my website. Getting connection time out error – Naren Verma Jul 13 '23 at 12:30

score 21 · Accepted Answer · answered May 11 '16 at 08:47

21

The user that is running your web server does not have permissions to write to the directory that Wordpress is intending to create the plugin directory in. You should chown the directory in question to the user that is running Wordpress. It is most likely not root.

In short, this is a permissions issue. Your touch command is working because you're using it as root, and root has global permissions to write wherever it wants.

answered May 11 '16 at 08:47

kevr

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Obviously, but that doesn't tell us which directory to fix. – felwithe Jan 30 '19 at 16:58
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@felwithe it's not obvious to OP, obviously. – kevr Jul 21 '19 at 00:27
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it doesn't matter who you think it's obvious to or not (even though the error message literally says "couldn't create directory"), it doesn't answer the question. – felwithe Jul 23 '19 at 14:16
Fair enough. I was more trying to explain what the problem was so he could understand how to fix things like this in the future. – kevr Aug 22 '19 at 06:09

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered May 11 '16 at 08:50

17

A quick solution would be to change the permissions of the following:

/var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content
/var/www/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins

Change it to 775.

After installation, don't forget to change it back to the default permissions.. :D

answered May 11 '16 at 08:50

Severino Lorilla Jr.

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Great quick fix for users without root access – Robin Métral Mar 19 '19 at 08:59
In my case it changed permissions for wp-content but it its not allowing to change for plugins for wp-content – Heemanshu Bhalla Oct 01 '19 at 14:22

score 11 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 05 '19 at 10:55

11

If you have installed wordpress using apt, the config files are split in multiple directories. In that case you need to run:

sudo chown -R -h www-data:www-data /var/lib/wordpress/wp-content/
sudo chown -R -h www-data:www-data /usr/share/wordpress/wp-content/

The -h switch changes the permissions for symlinks as well, otherwise they are not removable by user www-data

answered Dec 05 '19 at 10:55

Pelle

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how i can change permission on cents os server – Mr Coder Jul 23 '20 at 14:04

score 10 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 05 '19 at 01:58

10

I had to give ownership of /plugins and /upgrade to the server, nothing else.

$ cd /var/www/wordpress/wp-content
$ sudo chown www-data:www-data /plugings
$ sudo chown www-data:www-data /upgrade

Running Apache server on Ubuntu 18.04. Maybe more dirs will need to be changed later. Anyways, I plan to restore permissions once I finish editing, as suggested in this anwser.

answered Jun 05 '19 at 01:58

Gabi L

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If other answers do not solve the problem, try this one! /upgrade directory is suspicious! – shintaroid Oct 05 '20 at 01:48
bad practice indeed. – Leandro Bardelli Apr 30 '22 at 16:08

score 8 · Answer 7 · answered May 14 '19 at 15:14

To solve permission issue on plugins and themes on localhost or production quickly, you just run this

sudo chmod 757 wp-content/themes
sudo chmod 757 wp-content/plugins

if take care permission on production, you can run

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data wp-content/themes
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data wp-content/plugins

score 6 · Answer 8 · edited Aug 09 '22 at 17:51

CentOS7 or Ubuntu 16

1.

WordPress uses ftp to install themes and plugins.
So the ftpd should have been configured to create-directory

vim /etc/pure-ftpd.confg

and if it is no then should be yes

# Are anonymous users allowed to create new directories?
AnonymousCanCreateDirs       yes

lastly

sudo systemctl restart pure-ftpd

2.

Maybe there is an ownership issue with the parent directories. Find the Web Server user name and group name if it is Apache Web Server

apachectl -S

it will print

...
...
User: name="apache" id=997
Group: name="apache" id=1000

on Ubuntu it is

User: name="www-data" id=33 not_used
Group: name="www-data" id=33 not_used

then

sudo chown -R apache:apache directory-name

3.

Sometimes it is because of directories permissions. So try

sudo chmod -R 755 directory-name

in some cases 755 does not work. (It should & I do not no why) so try

sudo chmod -R 777 directory-name

4.

Maybe it is because of php safe mode. So turn it off in the root of your domain

vim php.ini

then add

safe_mode = Off

NOTE:
For not entering FTP username and password each time installing a theme we can configure WordPress to use it directly by adding

define('FS_METHOD','direct');

to the wp-config.php file.

score 6 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 01 '21 at 07:44

6

If you are mac user , using XAMP

Go to the htdocs folder and open the terminal on the folder , as shown in the screenshot

Then Type the following command on the Terminal

**sudo chmod -R 777 <your wordpress folder Name>/**

E.g sudo chmod -R 777 wordpress/

answered Apr 01 '21 at 07:44

Fitsum Alemu

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This is very very dangerous – Krishna Karki Jul 04 '22 at 10:18

score 4 · Answer 10 · answered Dec 29 '20 at 02:50

You need to change the permission of the directory

At first change the user HTML folder (replace yourcomputerusername)

sudo chown yourcomputerusername:yourcomputerusername /var/www/html
Next change the permission for the user

cd /var/www/html

sudo chmod -R goa=rwx wordpress

or

sudo chmod -R 777 wordpress/wp-content

score 3 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 14 '18 at 19:39

3

If anyone using shared hosting and get same problem it may be disk space issue. In that case contact with your hosting support and ask them to increase disk space of your acocunt.

answered Dec 14 '18 at 19:39

Rana.Asif

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same case. So cleanup a space – Слава ЗСУ Feb 26 '21 at 19:27

score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 11 '19 at 10:17

2

I was on XAMPP for linux localhost and this worked for me:

sudo chown -R my-linux-username wp-content

answered Mar 11 '19 at 10:17

Sunil Kumar

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score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Apr 08 '19 at 07:31

2

What I end up doing is every time I create a WordPress project. in /www/html

I run below command

sudo chown www-data:www-data  wordpress_folder_name -R

hope this will help someone.

answered Apr 08 '19 at 07:31

Hitesh Ranaut

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score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Apr 14 '19 at 18:12

1

For me the problem was FTP server that WP is using to upload update. It had writting disabled in configuration, so just enabling it fixed the problem.

Shame on WordPress for providing such misleading error message.

answered Apr 14 '19 at 18:12

Googie

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score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Sep 21 '21 at 21:20

1

You could try

sudo chmod goa=rwx -R /var/www/html

answered Sep 21 '21 at 21:20

MD SHAYON

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You should edit your previous answer (from almost a year before) rather than making a new one https://stackoverflow.com/a/65486715/2308683 – OneCricketeer Oct 03 '21 at 14:05
bad security practice. – Leandro Bardelli Apr 30 '22 at 16:10

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Apr 09 '21 at 06:35

0

None of the above work for me except this one.

sudo chown daemon:daemon /opt/bitnami/apache/htdocs/

Don't forget to change /opt/bitnami/apache/htdocs/ to your directory

answered Apr 09 '21 at 06:35

Uzair

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This is because every answer is for apache. You are using another distribution or server. – Leandro Bardelli Apr 30 '22 at 16:09

score 0 · Answer 17 · edited Oct 20 '21 at 23:25

0

Webserver user must have write access to directories to perform such operations, so you can try to change owner of files to webserver user (apache in this example, but can be differ from yours)

chown -R apache YOUR_BLOG_DIRECTORY

edited Oct 20 '21 at 23:25

Yaroslav

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answered Oct 20 '21 at 11:13

Mahdi Bashirpour

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Could you add some explanation as to what this does? – camille Oct 20 '21 at 16:12

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Sep 18 '22 at 22:17

If you are using some app that wraps http, you have to set these user in the command.

sudo chown -R [desireduser]:[desireduser] wp-content/

By example, if you are using lampp, the users that init httpd is "daemon" and the command that works will be:

sudo chown -R [desireduser]:[desireduser] wp-content/

You can search in your httpd.conf file

Ishwar Chandra Tiwari · Answer 19 · 2019-09-04T18:38:21.937

-3

To solve permission issue on ubuntu server, you just run this
sudo chmod 777 -R 'wordpress wp-content file location' 
for example.
sudo chmod 777 -R /usr/share/wordpress/wp-content

edited Sep 04 '19 at 18:38

answered May 20 '19 at 11:33

Ishwar Chandra Tiwari

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This is a bad idea, 777 gives access to all users and processes to write these files. – Pelle Dec 05 '19 at 09:49
this is your call how you use chmod, i just given the solution – Ishwar Chandra Tiwari Dec 12 '19 at 09:01
1

If the issue happens on your local, it's fine to use 777. – Han Van Pham Nov 11 '20 at 16:10

score -4 · Answer 20 · answered Jan 19 '20 at 03:16

-4

wordpressProject is the project name.

/var/www/html/wordpressProject sudo chmod -R 777 wp-content

Thanks. It will work.

answered Jan 19 '20 at 03:16

Y. Joy Ch. Singha

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never set 777 permissions unless u want to get hacked even by bots. – Oliver White Feb 28 '20 at 01:34

score -9 · Answer 21 · answered Dec 24 '18 at 09:36

-9

Absolutely it must be work!

Use this chown -Rf www-data:www-data /var/www/html

answered Dec 24 '18 at 09:36

Louis Byun

1

You shouldn't give the webserver full control of the files in webroot. – andho Jan 01 '19 at 16:55

Wordpress plugin install: Could not create directory

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