update to WordPress 3.3.2 automatically FAILED

Do the upgrade manually.

Download the latest version of WordPress, unzip it, upload all the files into the WordPress directory, then access wp-admin

That will give you the latest version of WordPress.

It’s a permission issue by the looks of it.

Yes, as Jonathan says try a manual update and see how you get on .

Do the manual update via FTP.

Oh my goodness, there’s like a million files, and tons of sub-folders, this is going to take forever, is this really the right way to do it?!

It shouldn’t take forever. Drag the contents of /wordpress/* into your wordpress folder, and click yes to override all files.

It shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes to upload everything. It’s only a few megabytes of data.