Filesystem Write Errors

Symptom #

When you try to activate a snippet, you see a generation error such as “Cannot create directory” or “Failed to write generated file.”

Or you see this as a persistent admin notice: “GOCSM cannot write generated snippet files. Snippet file generation is unavailable until wp-content/uploads/gocsm/ is writable.”

Check the diagnostics #

Go to Settings. Runtime diagnostics shows “Generated files writable”. If it shows No, the directory is not writable. The value comes from the last time the plugin was activated, so after fixing the problem, deactivate and reactivate the plugin to run the check again.

Common causes #

Incorrect file permissions #

The wp-content/uploads/ directory must be writable by the web server user (typically www-data or nginx).

# Check current permissions
ls -la wp-content/uploads/

# Fix permissions if needed
chown -R www-data:www-data wp-content/uploads/gocsm/
chmod -R 755 wp-content/uploads/gocsm/

Managed hosting restrictions #

Some managed WordPress hosts (WP Engine, Kinsta, Pantheon) restrict PHP file writes to the uploads directory for security. Contact your host to ask whether PHP-generated files in wp-content/uploads/ are supported.

If your host does not allow it, enable Eval fallback mode in Settings. Set it to Auto so GOCSM falls back to eval when PHP file generation fails. In the current implementation, Always also permits eval fallback but still attempts file generation first during activation.

SELinux or AppArmor #

On hardened Linux systems, SELinux or AppArmor may block the web server from writing to uploads. Check your audit log:

ausearch -m avc -ts recent

Using eval fallback #

See Eval Fallback Mode for full details. Note that eval fallback has performance and debuggability trade-offs.