WordPress 5.5 Update failed: multiple “chmod() operation not permitted” errors

  • I run several small websites, self-hosted on a Synology NAS, and have now experienced the same failure on two of them when trying to update to WordPress 5.5.

    I updated my plugins and themes, then attempted the WordPress update. According to the Site-Health page, my sites are using PHP 7.3.16 (this is the most recent update available from Synology) and Maria DB 10.

    I first got the scary-looking, but apparently innocuous warning about the signature on the update content file not being recognised. Then came the warning, “chmod() operation not permitted” (line 168).

    I would have thought that this would be enough to stop the update but it seems to have continued, and underneath repeated exactly the same warning – probably about 25 times. After maintenance mode had locked me out of the site for several minutes, I was given the information that the update had failed – and an invitation to retry. Clicking this retry link appears to have had no effect.

    The site is still operational to the visitor, but I cannot edit any pages or add any new ones. When attempting to create a new page I was given the error message:

    Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class ‘WP_Block_Patterns_Registry’ not found in /volume1/web/****/wp-admin/edit-form-blocks.php:312 Stack trace: #0 /volume1/web/****/wp-admin/post-new.php(72): require() #1 {main} thrown in /volume1/web/****/wp-admin/edit-form-blocks.php on line 312
    There has been a critical error on your website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions.

    Further investigation on the dashboard reveals that I cannot view the Media Library.

    I don’t understand php and was rather hoping “automatic update” would just work (like it has in the past). I’ve seen @asdgresa’s similar thread “/error-while-updating-wordpress-2” which was about a previous edition update and note that this was solved by “the hosting guy” doing a reset, but this doesn’t help me because I am the hosting guy!

    Can someone please explain in non-technical language what I might need to do to get round this? (And be patient with me if I have to ask more questions!)

    Thank you so much

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Jan Dembowski.
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  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    It appears you now have a partial update. Some files are for one version, some for another. Please review the docs page Updating WordPress. You can jump to the failed update section, but the part about file ownership could be meaningful. You’ll want to verify that the files you’ve uploaded all have the correct permissions. Files are typically 644, but you might need 664, depending on what user WP runs as.

    To avoid this problem in the future, you need to get chmod() permitted somehow. It may be something in php.ini, or possibly the user WP runs as needs more authority or should be an entirely different user. The user and group used is defined in httpd.conf.

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