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

Answer 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.

Answer 2

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

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

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

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

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