Issues with file ownership and FTP (on new WP installation)

  • I am trying to install a website for my wife. But now in wordpress, in the editor screen, I get the message: (in dutch)

    Je moet dit bestand eerst beschrijfbaar maken voor je de wijzigingen kunt opslaan. Zie de Codex voor meer informatie.

    Translates to: You have to make this file writable before you van save changes…

    I have checked the file permissions using FileZilla, and could not find ANY difference in permissions compared to my own site. So the problem should lie somewhere else.

    Secondly, I get the FTP-connecting error when I try to install a plugin. Adding the values to config.php as described here, did not help.

    The site I am building right now is at https://www.tanjavanleeuwen.com

    When I implemented my own site a year ago, I didn’t have problems at all. Is there a way to install WP in a better way? Both times I did it like this:
    – Get database number/create db number at provider (mijndomein).
    – Download and unzip wordpress from wordpress.com
    – Upload files to /public/sites/www.tanjavanleeuwen.com/
    – tried /wp-config/install.php, but had to manually upload wp-config.php.
    – I edited the wp-config, adding the FTP credentials.

    I hope someone can help me out on this.

    Kind regards,

    Peter de Klein

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • The most likely cause of this problem is not the permissions per se, but the Owner or possibly Group defined for the files. Unfortunately, FileZilla cannot change Owner/Group for you.

    WordPress runs the best when it runs under the same UserID as the owner of the WordPress files.

    Thread Starter peterpeer

    (@peterpeer)

    WordPress runs the best when it runs under the same UserID as the owner of the WordPress files.

    Do you have a suggestion how to change this. E
    G. What I should use as userID?

    Is this problem at my wordpress files online, at my domain or somewhere else?

    You will probably have to ask your hosting provider as figuring out userid is very different depending on how they set up their web server.

    About the only way to guess that I can think of is find out the Owner (userid) of WordPress files on a site that works properly on the same hosting provider. Then you have to figure out how to change the Owner of your files.

    I really think your hosting provider is the one who can help you figure this all out.

    But a little explanation might help. In the most common situation — Linux with Apache as the web server software — Apache runs WordPress as userid www-data. Therefore, it makes sense, from a permissions point of view, for all web files (everything on all web sites) to be owned by userid www-data.

    In Linux, the command line command is chown -R www-data:www-data followed by the root directory path.

    Thread Starter peterpeer

    (@peterpeer)

    Hi Jon,

    Thanks for the swift reply. I will forward this question to my hosting provider. I will keep this post updated for the outcome.

    One idea: should it help to start over again? Let’s say: delete all files from the domain, and create a new database? Use another guide to help me throught the installation process?

    Well, if you do decide to try again before you hear back from your host’s support folks, I would recommend trying a different approach. Either of these are different enough that it might work:

    1. See if your hosting provider has a WordPress install option on its Control Panel. There can be issues with these kind of scripts, but permissions would not be a problem, that is for sure.
    2. See if it is possible to unzip on the host, rather than on your own computer.

    I have a similar problem. I find that WinSCP will change the ownership if the server allows it. It’s a more powerful version of FTP if you are using windows.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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