Solved WordPress Error – Download failed destination directory for streaming does not exist or is not writable

If you are unable to update or install any plugin, theme on your wordpress website because of the this directory not writable error. Follow the steps below to learn how to fix this issue so you can install and update plugins on your wordpress website.

This error usually happens after you have migrated your website from a localhost wordpress installation or from a vps cloud hosting where you were using programs like Bitnami to host your wordpress website. When you migrate your wordpress website a line in your wp-config.php files remains unchanged pointing to an non-existing location on your server. When wordpress tries to extract files to a temporary location referred in wp-config.php file it fails and show that error as that location on your server do not exist.

How to Fix Download failed destination directory for streaming does not exist or is not writable

If the youtube video for some reason in not visible below you can click here to watch it.

Download failed destination directory for streaming does not exist or is not writable

Step 1. Login to your File Manager

Step 2. Select and open wp-config.php file for editing. If you don’t have access to a file manager program you will have to use a program called filezilla to edit the wp-config.php file. Filezilla tutorial.

Step 3. Now as shown in video search for ‘temp’

Step 4. Now you can use multiple methods to fix the issue.

a) Replace the existing file path for temp directory to define(‘WP_TEMP_DIR’, ABSPATH . ‘/../temp/’);

b) Remove the temporary path line.

Step 5. On rare occasion this error could be related to your wp-content directory permission. For most servers recommended settings is 755 which is considered safe but you can try changing it to 777. If your hosting provider requires permission level 777 it may cause some security issue so please check with your hosting company for confirmation.