Aaron Weiss

command line interface

Plugin Update Failed: How To Fix WordPress Plugin and Theme Permission Errors

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Recently, when attempting to update some plugins and themes on my WordPress installation, I can across two errors:

Failure Updating Plugins

An error occurred while updating <plugin name>

WordPress plugin update failure: Update Failed: The update cannot be installed because we will be unable to copy some files. This is usually due to inconsistent file permissions.
Example of a plugin update failure. Click to see an enlarged version.

And…

Failure Deleting Plugins

Plugin could not be deleted due to an error: Could not fully remove the plugin(s) my-plugin/my-plugin.php

Could not fully remove the plugin.
Example of a plugin deletion failure. Click to see an enlarged version.

The root of the problem is that same: permissions. I’ve found two ways to correct this if your WordPress website is hosted on a Linux server and you have shell access.

This error and solution is the same for WordPress themes too.

  1. Update the plugins or themes using WP-CLI
  2. Run a Linux command

Update Plugins or Themes with WP-CLI:

WP-CLI is a command line interface for Linux that allows you to complete WordPress tasks and functions using the Linux command line. This can be faster than completing the same many functions tasks within the WordPress Dashboard.

Built into WP-CLI is the ability to update plugins, themes, and even the core WordPress installation from the command line. This circumvents the problem because there are no interfaces with a browser, and therefore no need for the actual web server (usually Apache) getting involved.

  1. Install WP-CLI or use a host that has it installed by default like a2 Hosting.
  2. Run wp plugin update or wp theme update.

However, this is not a permanent solution. But learning the WP-CLI and creating scripts can increase the speed of completing WordPress functions.

Run a Linux Command

This is the best option because we’re actually fixing the problem.

sudo chown -R www-data /path/to/plugin

Replace “/path/to/plugin” which is usually something along the lines of /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/ewww-image-optimizer, which was an example of the problem I faced.

This will give ownership of the directory back to Apache so that when you update the plugin again through WordPress’s update features, it should work permanently.

Conclusion

These are two great ways in which to correct the ownership issues with WordPress plugin and theme updates. While option 2 is clearly the permanent solution, updating using an automated script found in option 2 might be more helpful if you want to save time maintaining your WordPress website.