Permissions Reseting every January (750 & 640)

  • Whenever the new year starts the permissions on the WP Content and the uploads folder change from 755 to 750 on many of the WP sites I manage. The common factor is the WP Original Media Path plugin. Sites without the plugin have not experienced this issue. It has been happening every January for several years now I haven’t had the time to look into it fully and assumed it was the hosting. My Hosting company has looked into it and there is nothing at their end that would be doing this. I end up with

    • wp-content – 750
    • uploads – 750
    • 2021 – 750
    • 01 – 750
    • all files in this folder 640.

    All other folders under wp-content and uploads remain 755. This means any files uploaded to the site after the beginning of the new year don’t show in the media library or on the website. I have to login to cPanel on 20+ and reset the permissions to 755 for the folders and 644 for the files.

    On all the sites I have the Full URL path to files set to a subdomain (e.g. https://img.mydomain.com) that points to the wp-content/uploads folder.

    I don’t know how I can force the date on shared hosting to trip the year change to test this fully.

    Could you please check the code to see if there is a reason this is happening.
    Many Thanks!

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Author RVOLA

    (@rvola)

    Thank you for your detailed report.
    You should know that this problem is not caused by my extension, because it only puts an interface to program fields hidden by Automattic since version 3.5.

    I invite you to look at the code in Github and you will see that there is nothing that gives any chmod to your files.

    I am using this plugin and +10000 other active installations. If the problem was “common” everyone would report it to me.

    To help you, I also think that there is a change made by the server.

    Nothing could be simpler to carry out tests!
    Use a WordPress that you haven’t published any media for this month for example. The 2021/03 folder should be in your uploads folder.
    Delete the file in FTP, and simply load a page from your website.

    WordPress will create the 2021/03 folder (this is a behavior of WordPress, not my plugin).

    If the chmod is not 755, I invite you:
    You are not using a version auto-installed by your cPanel?

    • check that you are using a recent version of PHP (7.0 minimum)
    • reinstall WordPress to be sure a file has not been corrupted.
    • repeat the test.

    You can also read the documentation here which will give you “tips” on WordPress chmods and servers
    https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/changing-file-permissions/

    Finally, other users have already encountered this problem:
    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10354588/use-wordpress-with-folder-permissions-750
    https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18352682/correct-file-permissions-for-wordpress

    Thread Starter ZeroGravity

    (@zerogravity)

    Thanks for your quick reply @rvola! I do love your plugin. ??

    The testing scenario you mentioned won’t reproduce the issue. It only happens when the new year clicks over, i.e. the creating of the year folder – 2021 for example. Once I login to each cPanel account in January and reset the permissions all the subsequent folders (02, 03, 04 etc.) are created with the correct 755 permissions. Come the new year the wp-content and uploads folders return to 750 resulting in the year folder being created with 750. ?? I logged into one of the accounts exhibiting the behavior and deleted the 2021 folder. When I accessed the website the 2021 folder was recreated with the correct 755 permissions. Getting more and more baffled!

    Are you using subdomains in the Full URL path to files setting?

    I know what the permissions should be and how to reset them so the links you provided don’t really help.

    The curious thing is, this only happens on the websites where I have your plugin installed. I did have a quick look through the plugin code but not being a complete expert in PHP didn’t know if I was missing something.

    I usually install WP on cPanel using the Softaculous app installer but turn off all the update and backup settings. My thought is if this is the issue it would happen with every site on my server.

    All the sites are running PHP 7.3+ and the latest versions of WP and plugins. Keeping these up to date I’m guessing any corrupted files would be replaced.

    I am going to asking my hosting provider if there is a way I can force the date/time back to 12/31/20 and see what happens.

    Plugin Author RVOLA

    (@rvola)

    Okay,
    Thank you for your enthusiasm.

    if it only does it on 01/01 it is:
    either a script which is left by Cron task (WP?)
    either a server update with log rotation or something like that.

    I can assure you that my extension does not do this action.

    Try to install WP-Crontrol and check if a task is scheduled on 01/01.

    I searched on servers with cPanel, I cannot change the default time

    Plugin Author RVOLA

    (@rvola)

    I wonder if the problem would be the following:

    You are using a subdomain, so you may have to create a user.
    Maybe your host will do a routine on 01/01 which checks that users have access to the right folder / file and in front of this user modifies the chmod

    Thread Starter ZeroGravity

    (@zerogravity)

    Thanks @rvola. My host has confirmed there is no way to change the date/time on the server for testing. ?? I am at a loss. I don’t want to have to reset all those websites again next year.

    Plugin Author RVOLA

    (@rvola)

    ok, thanks for the feedback.
    Try to deactivate the plugin on a site on 12/31.
    If the files were modified on 01/01 it is because the plugin has nothing to do with it.

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