Cant upload images to /uploads/

So I’m not able to upload images through wordpress, whenever I do it says “Unable to create directory —. Is its parent directory writable by the server?” I’m pretty sure its not a permissions issue because I changed it to 777 and it still says that, I just uploaded images through ftp to the folder and they dont appear in the library either. I already tried disabling/reenabling all the plugins and the other suggestions for troubleshooting this. I’m using multisite and I can’t find the url path option under media-settings as the superadmin. Any help is appreciated.

*also, if I have a custom template for my homepage what do i need to have image url links be? would /uploads/~/.png work?