Title: Plugin and theme upgrades on Mac Server
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Plugin and theme upgrades on Mac Server

 *  [coreyb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/coreyb/)
 * (@coreyb)
 * [15 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-and-theme-upgrades-on-mac-server/)
 * Hi all,
 * I don’t know if this issue has been posted before in the feedback, I could not
   find it so I am posting it again. 😀
 * Anyway, it seems that for some reason WP in a Mac Server environment will not
   allow for the proper completion of plugin and theme upgrade/installation from
   the GUI. Core upgrades and image uploads seem to work just fine, but when WP 
   tries moving items from the /wp-content/upgrade/somefile.tmp the system breaks
   down. Old files are deleted from the plugin directory and the temp files are 
   created, but not moved.
 * Here is one of the threads discussing the problem.
 * [http://tinyurl.com/25c3s7q](http://tinyurl.com/25c3s7q)
 * Thanks for taking a look, I know it has been challenging to anyone running a 
   Mac Server-Wordpress setup.
 * -C

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  Thread Starter [coreyb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/coreyb/)
 * (@coreyb)
 * [15 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-and-theme-upgrades-on-mac-server/#post-1801001)
 * Okay, so I thought I would update and see if anyone has a workaround that I have
   not thought of.
 * I found that if one adds the `define('FS_METHOD', 'ftpsockets');` instead of `
   define('FS_METHOD','direct');` and the FTP_USER is set to “root” the system works.
   However I don’t like using my root user to do things like this.
 * Is there a way to get wordpress to use the vhost directory user’s user to move
   the files into place? They get downloaded okay it is just in the transfer to 
   the plugins directory that the problem arises.
 * -C
 *  Moderator [Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ipstenu/)
 * (@ipstenu)
 * 🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist
 * [15 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-and-theme-upgrades-on-mac-server/#post-1801002)
 * I think that rather depends on your Apache/PHP implementation. It would highly
   depend on the permissions of PHP calling FTP, and the folder permissions. I’ve
   seen non Mac Server cases where this acts up, and it’s usually FTP/Permissions
   issues.
 *  Thread Starter [coreyb](https://wordpress.org/support/users/coreyb/)
 * (@coreyb)
 * [15 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-and-theme-upgrades-on-mac-server/#post-1801003)
 * Thank you ipstenu!
 * After some research I found that if one sets up the “sharing points” properly
   with users and group permissions in the Workgroup Manager, Mac Server puts the
   ftp user in the “staff” group without any indication.
 * So, where one keeps their vhosts or the wordpress directory the ownership will
   be set to either `root:_www`, `_www:_www` or `username:_www` it needs to be changed
   to `_www:staff`
 * eg. `# chown -R _www:staff wordpress`
 * Thanks for everyone’s help
 * -C
 *  [sdaniell](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sdaniell/)
 * (@sdaniell)
 * [15 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-and-theme-upgrades-on-mac-server/#post-1801030)
 * Thank you coreyb! I was having the exact same issue, works like a charm now. 
   🙂

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Plugin and theme upgrades on Mac Server’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [mac](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/mac/)
 * [updates fail](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/updates-fail/)
 * [upgrade](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/upgrade/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [sdaniell](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sdaniell/)
 * Last activity: [15 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-and-theme-upgrades-on-mac-server/#post-1801030)
 * Status: not resolved

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