Upload media errors

Hello all,
this topic has been up a couple of times however if have tried all possible solutions and am still stuck.

1. Upon media upload i got the error:
“…/folder writable by the server?”
-> so i changed even ALL directory permissions

2. Manually created the folder ‘uploads’
-> now the error is “file could not be moved to wp-content/uploads”

3. Add the following to my config.php:
define(‘UPLOADS’, ‘wp-content/uploads’); in the line above:
require_once(ABSPATH . ‘wp-settings.php’);

4. called my hosting provider (Strato) and did check with them for permissions. All seems clear from their side.

Is there anyone experiencing the same at the moment? and has a fix that could work.

A few things i found strange:
. the dashboard wordpress php editor won`t save changes made. I have to edit the files through an xternal editor and through FTP upload changes are applied
. there is no htaccess file to be found in my wordpress directory

Many thx for any advise