Update Failed: Unable to locate WordPress content directory (wp-content).

With plugin version 0.8.2 … some additional observations.

I have a chrooted setup on Ubuntu for my WP accounts and sites.

I use an absolute path for FTP_BASE and it works.

If I define this constant (below) then updates fail with permission violations on specific files.
define (‘FTP_CONTENT_DIR’, ‘/var/www/wp_chroot/wpdocroot/wp-content/’);

FOR EXAMPLE trying to update Yoast SEO I get:
Update Failed: Could not copy file. wordpress-seo/admin/ajax/class-recalculate-scores-ajax.php

If I use a path -relative to the chroot directory- then sometimes updates succeed.
define (‘FTP_CONTENT_DIR’, ‘wpdocroot/wp-content/’);

Note that because this is chrooted, I use relative to wp_chroot, not relative to the docroot of the WP site.

If I also define FTP_PLUGIN_DIR it fails. Go figure.

Also I like the idea of having the SSH2 password filled in automatically, but I do not like having it in plaintext in a configuration file, so I don’t put it in wp-config.php although in the past that has functioned.

Your chroot setup seems a bit strange to me though it could work as well.

This is how I have it setup:
/etc/ssh/sshd_config:

Match User your_wordpress_user
 ChrootDirectory /home/your_wordpress_user
 ForceCommand internal-sftp -u 0027
 X11Forwarding no
 PermitTunnel no
 AllowTCPForwarding no

/etc/fstab:
/var/www/wordpress /home/your_wordpress_user/wwwroot none bind 0 0

The user directory with the bind mount looks like this:

root@webserver:~# ll /home/your_wordpress_user/
total 68
drwxr-xr-x  7 root                your_wordpress_user     4096 J?n 22 11:43 ./
drwxr-xr-x 13 root                root                    4096 Apr 23 11:49 ../
drwx------  2 your_wordpress_user your_wordpress_user     4096 Jul 10 16:12 .ssh/
drwxr-s---  6 your_wordpress_user www-data                4096 Jul 10 16:13 wwwroot/

Note the s bit, which also applies to all other directories below.

The only thing that does not correctly work with this setup are the permissions of files that get created. They have o+r set, which is not what the sftp umask 0027 implies.. WordPress seems to explicity set this somewhere, which is nonsense.
umask(0027);
in wp-config.php sadly also does not fix this.
Directories get created correctly, though (with o-rwx).

The wp-config.php can be seen in my last post.

I am doing a paper on WordPress and with no knowledge of programming trying to make my first site and learn how, and at the moment I stumbled upon a problem Installation failed: Unable to locate WordPress Content directory (wp-content). when trying to install the theme I chose for it. Could you please be so kind to explain to me in simple words how to solve this? I didn’t even know how to install wordpress so I am using the 000webhost.com site which automatically installed WordPress. Please help and dumb it down for me ??

I doubt you use the SSH SFTP Updater Support plugin, or do you?
If not, this is the wrong place to ask.

We just ran into this issue but on a core basis, nothing to do with the plugin. We have removed FS_METHOD from wp-config.php and all of a sudden, it works. Maybe this helps someone.