Wordpress Issue: Installing/Upgrading Plugins From Site

[Sorry if this isn't the right forum - I've tried endless Google searches and have yet to find a working solution, so here is my shot]

I have Wordpress up and running, and it seems to be running well. Once I tweaked it a bit, I'm happy. I have even installed the WPAU (Wordpress Automatic Update) plug-in and have migrated to different versions several times using that with success each time.

My issue seems to be related to the built in function that allows you to upgrade plugins from the administration pages. Every time I've attempted this I get errors relating to the FTP login information. I'm using my standard user account that I use to push photos from my iPhone, etc, to no avail. It says the username/password is incorrect, but I've tested from the node, under my home Ubuntu, from a home Windows machine, etc just to make sure I'm typing it right and it is still seen from the outside.

I'm sure the problem is in the PHP code that initiates the connection to my node's FTP server, but I just can't figure it out. I've tried setting it to use SSL only, no avail. I've even changed my root password, allowed FTP, tried that, and changed it back - no go.

Any suggestions? (I'm surprised that none of my upgraded versions of Wordpress have resolved the issue either).

9 Replies

What version of WordPress are you using?

2.7.1 is the latest version, with 2.8 due out soon.

Since 2.7 the automatic updates are part of standard WordPress (so you shouldn't need the WPAU plugin).

WordPress will ask you for your FTP details if the file permisisons mean that PHP can't modify the files.

James

I'm using 2.7.1 - and I actually used the built-in upgrade method on the last update (thanks for reminding me!). I liked this method because it was quicker, but WPAU let me download copies of my files and the DB along the way.

I actually just upgraded my total install of Ubuntu (with success!) and still nothing. Not that I expected this to work, but worth a try since I was due to patch for security holes anyways.

The plug-in install/update page still reads: "Username/Password incorrect for *"

Somehow though I've lost the FTP option and now I can only select FTPS.

I'm also having the same problem, and would love to hear the solution !

I remember having this problem a long time ago after migrating a blog over. IIRC, it's an ownership issue. Make sure your webserver owns the directory for the wordpress plugins, or it won't be able to write to it and throw a weird error (which is why I remember!)

edit: Looks like James beat me to the punch in his last line :) !

I had a similar problem when I recently migrated a Wordpress blog to Linode. As others have said, it is a permissions problem. Not only does the wp-content/plugins directory have to be owned by the webserver id/group, but the individual directories for each plugin within the plugin directory have to be owned the same.

Len

As for the permission issue, I don't have this problem with my WordPress blog installed on the Linode I have in London.

When I installed WordPress, I did this:

chown -R www-data:www-data /space/web/neonnero.com/www

Where both the user name and the group name Apache runs under is named "www-data" (Debian default, I assume), and "/space/web/neonnero.com/www" is the server path of the WordPress install directory. The "-R" changes the ownership recursively in all files and subpaths.

I did that as well, didn't fix the problem….

@NeonNero:

As for the permission issue, I don't have this problem with my WordPress blog installed on the Linode I have in London.

When I installed WordPress, I did this:

chown -R www-data:www-data /space/web/neonnero.com/www

Where both the user name and the group name Apache runs under is named "www-data" (Debian default, I assume), and "/space/web/neonnero.com/www" is the server path of the WordPress install directory. The "-R" changes the ownership recursively in all files and subpaths.

Thanks for the tips! I am using CentOS, so I changed the ownership of my wordpress files to apache.apache and it works. :D

cd /www-root-directory/

chown -R apache.apache *

I am not sure this will cause security issue or not, but you can change the ownership back after you finish the installation.

Ive been using the Fix Plugin Update plugin from the following source.

http://yoast.com/fix-automatic-plugin-update/

Works great on all current versions of Wordpress.

Reply

Please enter an answer
Tips:

You can mention users to notify them: @username

You can use Markdown to format your question. For more examples see the Markdown Cheatsheet.

> I’m a blockquote.

I’m a blockquote.

[I'm a link] (https://www.google.com)

I'm a link

**I am bold** I am bold

*I am italicized* I am italicized

Community Code of Conduct