If you run into problems trying to update WordPress, it could be caused by the temporary directory WordPress uses for downloads. You can easily fix this by defining a WP_TEMP_DIR in your wp-config.php file below.
WordPress update failing
If you’re trying to upgrade WordPress itself, you might encounter this error when trying to update:
Download failed.: Destination directory for file streaming does not exist or is not writable.
Installation Failed
WordPress plugin update failing
If you were trying to update a WordPress plugin, you might have encountered this error instead when updating:
An error occurred while updating (Plugin Name). Download failed. Destination directory for file streaming does not exist or is not writable.
Define a WP_TEMP_DIR in your wp-config.php file
If you’ve encountered issues trying to update WordPress, you can simply follow the steps below to resolve them.
- Open you wp-config.php file with the cPanel File Manager Code Editor
- You should see this code towards the top of the file:
* @package WordPress */
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'anotherd_wrd1');
Place this definition of define(‘WP_TEMP_DIR’, ABSPATH . ‘wp-content/’); in-between the lines mentioned above, so it ends up looking like this when you’ve completed it:
* @package WordPress */
define('WP_TEMP_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content/');
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'anotherd_wrd1');
Now Save your wp-config.php file.
- Try to update WordPress again, if for some reason it is still failing, be sure to check file permissions on your wp-content folder, and ensure it’s set to 755 so that the server can write to it.
