How to Fix the WordPress Error “Missing a Temporary Folder”

Is your WordPress site reporting a ‘Missing a temporary folder error? This problem prevents you from uploading photos, updating themes and plugins, or updating the core of WordPress. We’ll teach you how to simply fix the “Missing a temporary folder” error in WordPress in this article.

What Causes WordPress’s ‘Missing a Temporary Folder’ Error?

Incorrect PHP settings on your WordPress hosting environment are to blame for this problem. A PHP option sets a temporary folder that programs like WordPress can utilize to store data temporarily before saving it to the proper place.

When you upload an image, install or update a theme or plugin, or update WordPress core, WordPress requires access to this temporary folder.

If the location of this folder isn’t specified in your server’s PHP setup, WordPress won’t be able to accomplish any of these things and will display an error message that says “Missing a temporary folder.”

After that, let’s have a look at how to quickly resolve the ‘Missing a temporary folder error in WordPress.

WordPress Error: Temporary Folder Missing

You will need to edit the wp-config.php file in WordPress for this instruction. Please review our article on how to edit the wp-config.php file in WordPress if you haven’t done so previously.

To begin, connect to your website via an FTP client or the File Manager in your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard.

The next step is to identify and edit the wp-config.php file.

You must insert this code exactly before the line that says ‘That’s all, stop editing!’ in the file. ‘Have fun blogging.’

define('WP_TEMP_DIR', dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-content/temp/');

Save your modifications and re-upload your website’s wp-config.php file.

The next step is to navigate to the /wp-content/ folder and create a new folder within it. This new folder should be called transient.

That’s all there is to it; you can now go to your WordPress admin area and try to upload an image.

Troubleshooting

Check the directory permissions for your wp-content folder if this method doesn’t work.

This issue is produced by a hosting environment that is not properly configured. The above-mentioned solution is merely a workaround. You should still contact your hosting provider to have this issue resolved. If they don’t, you should consider switching to one of these best WordPress hosting providers.

We hope this post was helpful in resolving the error ‘Missing a temporary folder’ in WordPress. You might also want to save our comprehensive list of the most common WordPress issues and how to fix them to your favorites.

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