Zip creation errors

Hi,

UpdraftPlus calls upon PclZip (in your case), and PclZip in WordPress is configured to use the root of your WordPress site for its temporary files.

You can change that by defining PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR in your wp-config.php.

e.g. to cause it to use your uploads folder instead (which is usually writable, so a good choice):
define(‘PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR’, ABSPATH.’wp-content/uploads’);

If you’re using UpdraftPlus on work for clients, then please do take a look at UpdraftPlus Premium – https://updraftplus.com/shop/updraftplus-premium/ – it’s only people buying the paid product that makes it possible for us to produce, or provide free support, for the free product, which we want to continue (so that e.g. non-profits like you’ve used it on can benefit).

Best wishes,
David

Clarification of above: Themes folder, Plugins folder are 775 permissions. But Updraft Plus’s subfolder is 755. Overall wp-content housing these is 775

Thanks. But hmmm. Just tried it and still have same issue. Correctly named zips are created (very very quickly), stored in UP and uploaded to DB, but they are essentially empty when unzipped – do not contain the actual files they should. Just a folder or two of … nothing.

Would it help to share a full or partial log*? Best way to do that?

*Lots of lines that show “on disk size:0kb” like this excerpt: 0002.601 (0) Zip: backup_2014-10-16-1620_(sitename} _cea77d4a6bcf-plugins.zip.tmp: 2500 files added (on-disk size: 0 Kb)

(And yes, of course I will look into buying the Premium product. Still a semi-newbie at WP and building these sites as learning experience.)

Hi,

Best way to share a log is through pastebin.com.

First, though, do confirm that the wp-config.php setting is in a place where it can take effect. Go to the expert/debugging tab on the UpdraftPlus settings, and click on the phpinfo link. Then scroll through all the defined variables (they are shown alphabetically, or you can search), until you find the PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR define. If it’s not there, then it’s not been added to wp-config.php correctly. (The log won’t tell me this either way, so you need to check this).

Best wishes,
David

the PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR does show up with specified path to /wp-content/uploads. so it’s properly defined in wp-config.

Here’s full log from latest Backup attempt: https://pastebin.com/ZB0gGrhm

(can I delete a pastebin once you’ve see it? don’t want it out there for the world; never used pastebin before)

Hi,

To be clear – what exactly is the value of PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR shown? Just “/wp-content/uploads” and nothing more ? Or something else?

I confess I’ve not used pastebin.com as a poster. So I’m not sure what buttons it gives you. I don’t believe, though, that UD log files contain anything that isn’t publicly discoverable on your WP website anyway.

David

Here’s full line from variables list:

PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR /usr/local/apache/htdocs/thecenterforhealthenhancement.com/wp/wp-content/uploads

I’ll suss out the pastebin deletion later; as you say.. nothing too revealing.

And, just to check – is that the real path for your uploads folder?

If so, then you will need to ask your web hosting company about why there’s apparently no write permissions for WordPress to write there.

You could also try:

define(‘PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR’, ABSPATH.’wp-content/updraft’);

assuming that that’s where the internal UpdraftPlus folder is. You apparently do have permission to write to that.

David

/usr/local/apache/htdocs/thecenterforhealthenhancement.com/wp/wp-content/uploads is the correct full directory path to /uploads. And I can drag things in and out of it freely via ftp; has 777 permissions, so isn’t that basically wide open?

Just tried define(‘PCLZIP_TEMPORARY_DIR’, ABSPATH.’wp-content/updraft’); as an alternate – same outcome, same error.

Is this for sure a permissions issue? Just poked around further up the chain… see that I have no permission to directly access /usr or /local or /apache in the chain. Can see contents of /htdocs, and noticed that /thecenterforhealthenhancement.com folder within has more restrictive read/write permissions (750), then folders within it.

btw: thx much for staying tuned to this. sorry to be handing you such a conundrum.

All we’ve really got to go on is the message returned from PclZip:

0002.628 (0) Closing the zip file returned an error (PCLZIP_ERR_READ_OPEN_FAIL (-2) : Unable to open temporary file ‘pclzip-5440288bbd549.tmp’ in binary write mode).

So, it can’t open a temporary file. That might be because of permissions; it might be lack of disk space; it might be some other weird server quirk that I can’t think of. I think the best thing at this point would be to ask the web hosting company to take a look at the error message, and ask them for input.

David

Right. Showed them the log and message before I reached out to you; but at that time we didn’t know where UP was trying to write the .tmp – now I know how to answer that question. Will pursue them and advise. Thx, Kirk