Solve WordPress Update Cannot be Installed because "we will be unable to copy some files"

Written by Dan Mossop

When trying to update Divi Booster (or any other WordPress plugin, for that matter), you may receive the following error:

Update Failed: The update cannot be installed because we will be unable to copy some files. This is usually due to inconsistent file permissions.

This issue is usually caused by incorrect file permissions on your server (rather than being a problem with the plugin itself). Basically, WordPress isn't able to properly access its own plugins folder, and as a result can't put the updated Divi Booster files in there.

It should be possible to solve this by following the instructions in this post:

https://www.ostraining.com/blog/wordpress/file-permissions/

In the "list of critical files and folders" make sure that the "wp-content/" and "wp-content/plugins/" directories are set to the recommended permissions.

If you're not comfortable doing this yourself, your webhost may be able to make the necessary permissions changes for you.

Once the permissions issue has been resolved you should now, if all is well, be able to update the plugin successfully in the WordPress plugins listing.

Check out Divi Booster

Troubleshooting your WordPress update error? Enhance your Divi experience with Divi Booster, a powerful plugin that upgrades Divi with hundreds of new features. Get access to the latest bug fixes and enhance your site's functionality with ease.

About Dan Mossop

Dan is a Scottish-born web developer, now living in Brisbane with his wife and son. He has been sharing tips and helping users with Divi since 2014. He created Divi Booster, the first Divi plugin, and continues to develop it along with 20+ other Divi plugins. Dan has a PhD in Computer Science, a background in web security and likes a lot of stuff, 

14 Comments

  1. Thanks for the info. Searched everywhere but couldn't find the exact solution to this. Fixed after updating the file permissions. Thanks.

    Reply
    • Glad it helped, Raj :)

      Reply
  2. This saved me a whole lot of time. Thanks

    Reply
  3. Tks for your help!

    Reply
  4. sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www

    Reply
    • Thanks skyn3t :)

      Reply
    • Thank you so much.. it works!

      Reply
    • This is the most direct solution I found!
      Thanks for sharing @skyn3t

      Reply
    • Thanks @skyn3t, I had this error for some time, put your code on SSH, and voila… Worked perfectly.

      Reply
    • Thanks ds work and solve the issue. Thumb up

      Reply
    • Thanks it works

      Reply
    • Perfect.

      Reply
  5. Text on this page is garbled.

    Reply
    • Hi Andrew, thanks for letting me know. It looks like the line-height on my text modules had got messed up. It should be fixed now but let me know if not. Cheers!

      Reply

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