Cannot upload media via Wordpress uploader

Question

This has to do with media uploading in Wordpress.

Every time WP creates a folder for new uploads (it organizes uploads by year and month: yyyy/mm), it creates it with the "apache:apache' user and group, with full access to all (777 or drwxrwxrwx).

However, after that, WP cannot create a folder within that folder (e.g.: mkdir 2011 succeeds, but mkdir 2011/01 fails). Also, uploads cannot be moved into these newly created folders even though the permissions are 777 (rwxrwxrwx).

Once a month, I have to chown the newly created folders to be the same as user:group as the rest of the files. Once I do that, uploading works fine (which doesn't make sense to me The really frustrating part is that this problem doesn't exist in other WP installs on other domains on the same server.

* I wasn't sure if this should be here or on serverfault.

---

Edit: The containing directory /.../httpdocs/blog/wp-content/uploads has the correct ownership

drwxrwxrwx 5 myuser psaserv 4096 Jun  3 18:38 uploads

This is a Plesk/CentOS environment hosted by Media Temple (dv).

I've written the following test script to simulate the problem

<pre><?php 

$d = "d" . mt_rand(100, 500);

var_dump(
    get_current_user(),
    $d,
    mkdir($d),
    chmod($d, 0777),
    mkdir("$d/$d"),
    chmod("$d/$d", 0777),
    fileowner($d),
    getmyuid()
);

The script always creates the first directory mkdir($d) successfully. On domain A, where the WP problem is, it cannot create the nested directory mkdir("$d/$d"). However, on domain B, both directories are successfully created.

I am running each script at /var/www/vhosts/domainA/httpdocs/tmp/t.php and /var/www/vhosts/domainB/httpdocs/tmp/t.php respectively I checked the permissions on tmp, httpdocs, and domain[AB] and they are the same for each path. The only thing that differs is the user.

Answer 1

Check for a setuid or setgid bit on a directory above the 2010 directory. ls -l will have an s or S in the permissions for the directory. Make sure this directory has the correct ownership.

Answer 2

Try to create directory recursive with mkdir($d, true)

<pre><?php 

$d = "d" . mt_rand(100, 500);

var_dump(
         array(
               get_current_user(),
               $d,
               mkdir($d,true),
               chmod($d, 0777),
               mkdir("$d/$d", true),
               chmod("$d/$d", 0777),
               fileowner($d),
               getmyuid()
              )
        );

Answer 3

Try going to your miscellaneous settings page (or media depending on your version) and make sure the upload directory is still wp-content/uploads.

If you need to. set the full url too.

Also, as a final solution, disable the option to organize them into folders so that way WordPress doesn't even need to create folders.

Answer 4

I had a similar issue with Joomla recently, and solved the problem by adding myuser into the apache group, and add apache into the psaserv group.

Answer 5

One of our websites on a Media Temple DV was having this problem. Turning PHP Safe Mode off solved it. The directories were still created as apache:apache, but the media files were allowed in there.