Automatic plugin upgrade not working – ftp problems

That’s a really bad news.

I need to fix it soon. Do you have any new idea?

I even tried to hack the class-wp-filesystem-base.php file modifying the wp_content_dir() and wp_plugins_dir() to return with the hardwired absolute paths of the respective directories.
The result was – I was trying to delete a plugin through the dashboard – that I received a message: plugin(s) could not be fully deleted.
I’m getting too deep now, but still no resolution.

I have found a potential resolution – and thorough explanation – of the issue here: https://www.chrisabernethy.com/why-wordpress-asks-connection-info/.

Otto42, could you please confirm that it is correct?

Or even a patch here: https://lutt.se/blog/2009/01/04/patch-wordpress-automatically-upgrade-does-not-choose-direct-method.html

Otto42, could you please confirm that it is correct?

It’s correct, but it’s not a “problem”. That’s what it is designed to do. If WordPress cannot own its own files, then it can’t upgrade using the direct method. This is *by design*. It is entirely intentional.

If your webserver is not running suPHP, then the direct method won’t work properly for you.

You keep looking for some kind of “resolution”, but I’m telling you now that there probably is not one. Not all systems support auto-upgrade. It’s not going to work in all cases, all the time. That’s just the breaks.

The ticket for the patch mentioned:
https://trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/8794

I’m having the same problem, I can connect to the server using Localhost and also the URL. however I can’t locate the WP install dir.

It is located here: https://www.server.com/wp

Found that it was Firefox that was the problem.
Used Safari and it worked.

I am using localhost:21 but give me this probs

Downloading update from https://www.ads-software.com/wordpress-2.7.1.zip

Unpacking the core update

Could not copy file: /path/to/v1/wp-content/upgrade/core/wordpress/wp-trackback.php

Installation Failed

Dear Otto.. how to paste that definition of path in wp-config if my wp installed inside https://example.com/v1 ?

Cheers
Dhorl

Turning on PERL support fixed it for me.

Just another voice adding to the above exchange… I used local host (THANK YOU FOR THIS TIP!!! by the way) and it worked fine for me. Don’t you think it would be possible, on the Automatic Updates page in WordPress, to have a brief description of how the automatic updates work? Some summary of tips like we’ve seen here? I was clueless with this… thinking…. Do I put in the FTP server where the update is located so I can get it and have it installed? Do I put in my FTP server since that’s where it eventually goes? The real value of an Automatic Update is that it doesn’t take extra time and expertise and searching the web to find answers. It’s for those who aren’t technically advantaged. So, by having a “Click here for Automatic Updates” button and having it send people to a page with blanks to fill in and no description…. It seems like that’s a problem – one that could be easily remedied. Just my thoughts on it. Thanks for listening…

I’m having the same kind of problems, but I have three separate WordPress installations on the same server (different subdomains). Two of them will auto-upgrade just fine, I’ve never had a problem. The third refuses, it gives a “Unable to locate WordPress Plugin directory./Plugin upgrade Failed” error. It’s obviously not the server, all three are running 2.7.1, I’ve made sure all of the settings are the same (they’re identical for all three installs, except for the name of the subdomain), still no joy.

It really is a royal pain, especially when installing new versions, to have to run off to FTP directly, it’s really only been recently when WordPress has had Windows-style automatic updates that I’ve even bothered keeping up to date, I certainly don’t want to go back to having to do it all manually, especially since some plugins seem to update very regularly.

… The third refuses, it gives a “Unable to locate WordPress Plugin directory./Plugin upgrade Failed” error …

BitchSpot,

I don’t know if this has been answered before but I was having a similar issue and it was caused because my ABSPATH was not set correctly. To fix this, open file wordpress/wp-load.php and make the following change

/** Define ABSPATH as this files directory */
#define( ‘ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__) . ‘/’ ); <– comment this
define(‘ABSPATH’, ‘/u/akshay/public_html/wordpress/’); <– put your path in second argument

The above code is around line 19 in wordpress 2.7.1.

Any subject have over 20 posts should be closed off. “I am having the same yada, yada” – most often you are not unless you have cloned everything hardware and software,from the original poster.

Post a new problem when you have trouble. The reason is, when some of us have answered these 6 months ago, they scroll off our profile and can go unaswered.

akd907 if you had a similiar problem why do you think your fix will work? Appreciate you trying to help but it just adds nothing to the string.

You will get better response posting a new problem, with an accurate discription of what is not happening, what you want to happen and a real URL.

kmessinger: In these cases, a URL is utterly useless because it’s something that is entirely invisible to anyone looking at the pages. It’s like standing in the dark, saying you want people to tell you how to change a lightbulb.