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How to Solve WordPress Could Not Create Directory

/08 Useful Tips /How to Solve WordPress Could Not Create Directory

•  November 13, 2014 
•  Jeff Reifman
 
•  08 Useful Tips 
•  8 Comments

If you’re trying to upgrade WordPress or install a plugin and getting the “could not create directory” error, there are two levels required to solving it.

Here’s an example of the error sequence:

Downloading update from http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/your-plugin.0.9.3.1.zip…
Unpacking the update…
Could not create directory. /wp-content/upgrade/yourplugin.tmp
Return to Plugins page

1. Web Server Ownership
The first level is actually to make sure that your web server has ownership over the directories:
chown -R www-data:www-data your-wordpress-directory

2. Directory Permissions
The second level is also required – you must make sure that the directory permissions are properly set:
sudo find /var/www/wordpress/ -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
sudo find /var/www/wordpress/ -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

I’ve found that most solutions posted on the web show part two but skip the first part.

Source: http://publishingwithwordpress.com/how-to-solve-wordpress-could-not-create-directory/#ixzz3sPmvucJQ 
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