UPLOAD_ERR_CANT_WRITE But other files are getting uploaded

Question

I am facing a quite weird behavior in my server.

I can upload any files smaller than 1MB without problem, but those that are bigger return me an error UPLOAD_ERR_CANT_WRITE == 7.

The tmp/ folder has permissions since I can upload other files.

The config on my PHP.INI seems to be fine, I did upload files larger than 1MB using phpmyadmin before and it worked.

PHP.INI

• file_uploads On
• post_max_size 200M
• max_execution_time 30
• memory_limit 128M
• max_file_uploads 20
• upload_max_filesize 200M
• upload_tmp_dir /tmp

There's something I am missing? at my local machine works perfectly same config :S

I use ubuntu server 13.04 PHP 5.4.9 and Apache 2.2.22

Sure is the most stupid thing ever and I wasted 2 hours in this, I already have checked loads of docs at php.net but no luck. Any help is more than welcome.

Thanks!!!

UPDATE 10-01-2014: Still no luck I could not fix it.

Deprived

the destination has writable permission ? It should be 775. – Fierce

as said I can upload files smaller than 1mb no problem :S – Deprived

Have faced same problem recently , very rare but hair pulling issue, thanks for adding it – Rabon

Answer 1

Thanks to all your answers I found the error.

The server is an Ubuntu installation done by OVH installer. What I was not aware is that they will create the partitions in such a poorly way:

• Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
• overflow 1.0M 136K 888K 14% /tmp
• /dev/md2 1.8T 13G 1.7T 1% /home

So what I did is modify in php.ini the upload_tmp_dir to another folder with space...

Terrible I've wasted so much time, I never thought was actually an space issue, since in the HD I have 2TB!

Once more thanks and hope this may work to someone else.

Deprived

This was the solution for me too. The disk on my AWS micro instance disk filled up. I cleared out a bunch of junk, but I was still seeing the error. I set upload_tmp_dir to /usr/tmp and everything started working again. I still don't know where the original tmp directory is though. – Aerator

Mine, like chema's, was defaulting to /tmp, which on my AWS instance was also defined as a measely 1M "overflow" partition (whatever that means). This appears to be an unfortunate effect of combining PHP's default location for upload_tmp_dir with AWS's bizarre /tmp partition. Changing the php.ini to point to a larger drive did the trick. Thanks for solving this. – Karlsruhe

Actually according to this link, this strange /tmp partition is a result of running out of space on your regular partition and like hwrod's answer all you have to do is unmount it again. – Karlsruhe

I spent 3 days on it and your comment saved me. Thanks a lot! – Medamedal

Answer 2

Delete or move all files from /tmp and unmount the device so it uses the normal partition for /tmp.

 mkdir /usr/tmp
 mv /tmp/* /usr/tmp
 sudo umount -l /tmp
 mv /usr/tmp/* /tmp

Floyfloyd

this looks like a nice solution, didnt try though. – Deprived

Answer 3

It is probably due to your memory_limit configuration. Try to replace with 256M. If it works you should review your code to minify memory usage.

If it is due to your permissions configuration you'll see with:

ls -la /yourUploadDirectory

You should see something like:

drwxr-xr-x 65 user group     4096 nov 13 09:47 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 user   group       4096 ago  7 18:09 ..

group of . directory (first line) should be www-data. If it's not do:

chown yourUser:www-data /yourUploadDirectory

Also drwxr-xr-x should be drwxrwxr-x. If it's not do:

chmod 0775 /yourUploadDirectory

Now you're done to upload.

Herbie

Hello, thanks for prompt reply. I havent tried before the memory_limit I raised it to 512MB and still no luck. Permissions on upload folder are fine. I can upload other smaller files :s weird isn't? – Deprived

@chema, is there any file size limitation at your host?? Could you try to use file_put_contents() to write a 1 MB txt file ??? – Fierce

@AllenChak I have a dedicated server. :S I guess I am missing something stupid. Funny thing just 2 weeks a go I managed to restore a mysql DB of more than 10MB from phpmyadmin and it worked. Also note that the PHP script finish correctly but returning the witting error, when obviously he can write :S desperate here. Thanks! – Deprived

Also checkout your open_basedir php.ini option. It should be comment, or written the directories that Apache can access. – Herbie

@ManoloSalsas open_basedir no value, but as I said before, apache can write there. I uploaded smaller files before with success. Just tried now and also worked :S but file bigger than 1 MB I get the message that he cant write... – Deprived

Ok. Are you sure that you're changing the right file? Check: find /etc/* -name php.ini and diff file1 file2 to know if there are differences between them. – Herbie

I think so since the insfo I am getting it from phpinfo(); function and reflects my changes. – Deprived

Uhm... Are you sure that you have enough free space in the hard disk? Try df command. – Herbie

Still couldnt fix this. I am able to pay someone to do it for me. Anyone in the room? – Deprived

It,s maybe obvious, but have you restated your server after your php.ini changes? service apache2 restart – Herbie

Answer 4

I have the same issue with aws amazon, I used an instance type t2.micro with 8G in the hard disk and the disk became saturated, I try to upload a file in laravel project but I got an error "UPLOAD_ERR_CANT_WRITE", I changed the volume to 256G and it's work.

Nonconformist