File system permission error while installing drupal modules

Question

When I try to install new modules to drupal 7 via "Install new module" form, I get following error message.

• The specified file temporary://fileTFJ015 could not be copied, because the destination directory is not properly configured. This may be caused by a problem with file or directory permissions. More information is available in the system log.
• http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/date-7.x-1.0-alpha2.tar.gz could not be saved to temporary://update-cache/date-7.x-1.0-alpha2.tar.gz.
• Unable to retrieve Drupal project from http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/date-7.x-1.0-alpha2.tar.gz.

My Drupal 7 is installed with CPanel QuickInstall tool and hosted with HostGator shared hosting service. Any ideas how to solve this issue?

Solution 1

There is an issue with shared hosts and temp folders...if you want the background you can read this:

http://drupal.org/node/1008328

in the meantime try changing your tmp folder to be relative to your sites file root:

sites/default/files/temp

Solution 2

The quickest way to get a handle on this issue is to navigate via your web browser to:

/admin/config/media/file-system

You'll probably see an error there about not being able to write to the /tmp directory. To fix this, you can create a temp directory under site's root and set permissions appropriately.

1) Create a directory here [drupal_installed_here]/tmp

2) Navigate via your web browser to /admin/config/media/file-system and change the temp directory to be:

tmp instead of /tmp (no leading slash)

3) Try this command:

chmod 775 [drupal_istalled_here]/tmp

and refresh the /admin/config/media/file-system page

3) If that does not work, try this command:

chmod 777 /home/quickstart/websites/tmp

and refresh the /admin/config/media/file-system page

The last command opens up your temp directory permissions a lot (rwxrwxrwx), but sometimes that's necessary to get your site working on shared hosts.