Fix WordPress Download Failed Errors on Update

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:

WordPress plugin update failing

If you were trying to update a WordPress plugin, you might have encountered this error instead when updating:

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.

1. Open you wp-config.php file with the cPanel File Manager Code Editor
2. 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.

3. 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.