Note: This article was originally published in 2013. Some steps, commands, or software versions may have changed. Check the current WordPress documentation for the latest information.

How to resolve Download failed.: Destination directory for file streaming does not exist or is not writable in Wordpress

After some digging I was able to pin down what was the issue with my wordpress installation that was causing the error message mentioned above. It turns out I am hosting Wordpress on a Windows Box and therefore PHP uses a temporary directory to which it may not write. To resolve this there are two possible approaches:

  1. Give your application pool access to that temporary folder so you can extract the updates there OR
  2. Tell Wordpress to use a different Temporary folder

Option two is generally the easiest one specially when you don’t have access to the Windows Host. In order to accomplish this simply follow the instructions below: Add this line of code anywhere in the root file wp-config.php:

/* Setup a temporary folder for uploading and updating Wordpress */
define( 'WP_TEMP_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content/temp/') ;

and create a new folder named “temp” inside: /wp-content/ In case you were wondering php uses the C:WindowsTemp folder by default generally. That is all, I hope this helps!

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