You are in WordPress trying to upload an image, and get the dreaded message…

Unable to create directory uploads ~ ~ ~ Is its parent directory writable by the server?

Dismiss Errors
Error image-file-name.jpg

I am very pleased to say, I have found a setting that FIXED it for us. Hopefully it will fix it for you.

FIX

In the admin of WordPress, go to

Settings / Media 

Uploading Files

Store uploads in this folder ***

*** Make sure this path is correct. Ours had an incorrect useraccount name /home/wrongaccountname/public_html

Under the box it says: Default is wp-content/uploads > our path is = /home/accountname/public_html/wp-content/uploads

BACKGROUND

We have hundreds of WordPress installations and file permissions have never been an issue, so I largely suspected permissions was not the issue. As a number of people have correctly commented, changing folder permissions to 777 is very dangerous and leaves you wide open to attack. It is not nessesary and in most instances is not the cause, even though WordPress reports the directory is not writable.

The more likely scenario is the installation is trying to upload to the wrong directory (folder). The reason WordPress reports it as a permissions error because if the path is incorrect, then the uploads function does not have the correct permissions to write to the path.

This was the case with ours. We had moved this WordPress site from another site, and it was trying to upload to the old path, not the new path.

We hope it fixes it for you.

* WordPress ~ don’t get us wrong, we do love WordPress.  It coughs up its share of issues but largely works fabulously well and we always find a way around each issue.