All directory permissions are listed as unwritable

Question

I had a working website, but i had to move it to an other server. After i copied all files, directories and the database, everything seemed okay. But when I tried to install a new plugin, I got these errors:

Error
Archive does not exist


Warning
JFolder: :files: Path is not a folder. Path: /var/www/xxxxxxxx/tmp/install_562f7fbf33ded

JFolder: :folder: Path is not a folder. Path: /var/www/xxxxxxxx/tmp/install_562f7fbf33ded

JFolder: :files: Path is not a folder. Path: /var/www/xxxxxxxx/tmp/install_562f7fbf33ded

JInstaller: :Install: Cannot find Joomla XML setup file

I found another post with a related solution.

All permissions were listed as unwritable. But when i changed the owner and group of all the directories and files, nothing changed.

I know I should not do it, but I also tried to change some of the folders to 777 permission, but nothing changed. (it's a local test server)

Can anyone help me?

Answer 1

It's highly recommended to use Akeeba Backup for site transfers. This (free) Joomla extension makes it extremely easy to transfer/backup your site, and helps avoid this kind of problems.

It looks like your log and tmp directories are not properly configured in your configuration.php file.

Open the file configuration.php in the root folder of your Joomla installation, and locate the following lines:

public $log_path = '/var/www/xxxxxxxx/logs';
public $tmp_path = '/var/www/xxxxxxxx/tmp';

Edit the path to match your new server environment.

You can also edit the paths from the admin area (System -> Global configuration). The path to your log folder can be set from the "System" tab, and your temp folder from the "Server" tab:

Make sure you remember to set your folder permission back to the recommended values.