4.4 Update prevents plugin updates

having same issue as geeknews.

This is a known issue some some machines and the the core team are working on a patch for the issue which will most likely be in 4.4.1.

The issue effects a few small amount of sites where a certain flag parameter is not supported in the FTP process.

Good to hear! In the meantime, I’ll update manually.

Just an update in the matter. As of this morning, core as committed code the reverted the FTP bug back to 4.3 functionality and should be in the next release. Until then, manually updating should be done if you have issues.

Good stuff. ??

@ Justin Greer

I would not rule out there is something wrong with 4.4 but considering millions of sites updated in under 24 hours and only a handful of issues arise with this problem, we have to look at something outside of 4.4.

The question is how many WordPress users will take the trouble to login to this forum and report this issue. There’s quite a threshold doing so, hence, the number of posts here may not be representative at all.
I’m experiencing the same plugin-problems after upgrading to WP 4.4. Trying the solutions proposed here is way above my competence and availability. After all, I decided to use WordPress assuming I would have smooth, bug-free CMS to maintain my websites, and not having to deal with tech issues.
(I’m sorry if this is no contribution to the solution, but I feel I had to share my frustration just as well)

I’ve called my webhost and asked him if he knew the solution to this problem. He confirmed it’s a known WordPress issue, but provided me with a workaround. As a webmaster, you should have access to a service center where you can change server settings. The service center is called Plesk server or Cosmos or whatever. Somewhere in your configuration panel, probably under hosting performance, there should be a possibility to change the compatibility mode. It’s a binary setting; so it’s either on or off. Turn it ‘on‘ when you want to install your updates. After doing so, turn it ‘off‘ again, since your site might be a bit more vulnerable.

This problem affects sites on my VPS installations where I need to enter a FTP username and password to update plugins or themes.

The “could not create directory” message is displayed whatever file permissions are set up (even nobody ownership and chmod 777)

My hosting is on cPanel which does not have appear to have a compatibility mode, so @maszek solution is not available to me.

My workaround (if you can call it that) it to downgrade to WordPress 4.3.1 then update the plugins, then upgrade back to WordPress 4.4.

It would be really cool if the Hotfix plugin were re-incarnated to provide a solution for the interim period until WordPress 4.4.1 is released.

Just a quick note to say that I was able to fix this using the following patch on line 333 of wp-admin/includes/class-wp-filesystem-ftpext.php on WordPress 4.4 by removing the “-a” before the path so the line becomes

$file_list = @ftp_nlist( $this->link, $path );

Of course, as a general rule, it is not recommended to patch WordPress core files as the changes will be wiped out on the next release. But in this case WordPress 4.4.1 will likely fix this bug anyway so it is not a big deal IMHO.

@russell – my hero! That worked a charm – and I agree – a perfectly acceptable hack.

@russell Me too I have applied this hack to several websites, updating successfully both plugins and themes (after wasting the best of the day trying to figure out what was going on). THANK YOU!

@russell – You are the man! Thanks for this fix that actually works and isn’t a pain in the rear.