Installation failed: Could not create directory. . . .wp-content/upgrade

Thanks for getting to me Steven and bcworkz. I’m still trying to solve this problem. After searching the internet up and down, at least I know I’m not the only one to run into this. Although, none of the “solutions” I’ve tried to implement have done any good. (I hope it’s alright to reply to both of you at one time.)

Steven: I might have to try Flywheel’s Local app. and if I can’t get this straightened out I”ll have to. I’m a little wary of it, particularly when it comes to migrating the re-designed site over to GoDaddy (no comments, please). AS to your statement about the whole file system owned by the same user as the PHP is running, I don’t know who else that could be but me. Since I’m setting this up on my localhost I should be able to get through with my Mac admin and password. When I put that into the request panel I get: “Failed to connect to FTP Server localhost:21”. I get the same thing when I put in my WordPress username and password for the site, so I don’t really think I’m progressing.

bcworkz: As I said above there should be no other user than me, and I’ve tried various usernames and passwords with no effect. I looked through the Apache Web Server Configure file and found nothing about PHP User. There are instructions out there for using the Terminal to do things like change permissions. I’m not that experienced with using Terminal, but I have used it when instructed to. As far as enabling the ProFTPD server, I haven’t seen any instructions for that and providing (mystery) credentials is sort of what this problem is all about. Most of the instructions I find are about “check with your hosting service” to get them, but since this is n/a on localhost, I’m still at a loss.

I’ll continue to try some of the solutions out there including:
“…Then add these to wp-config.php:
/** Add here/
define(‘FS_METHOD’,’direct’);
define(“FTP_HOST”, “localhost”);
define(“FTP_USER”, “my_wordpress_user”);
define(“FTP_PASS”, “password”);
/* To here*/”
which seemed logical but did nothing but give me a blank screen when I logged in again.

I’ve already tried the “define( ‘FS_METHOD’, ‘direct’ );” workaround but that got me “unable to create directory” along with the stunning question, “Is its parent directory writable by the server?” (And if not, why not, I want to ask as well.)

Anyway, Thanks for your help, guys.