title: Wordpress fails to install plugins: Unable to locate WordPress Plugin directory
body: <p>I am unable to install plugins on my Centos 6 VPS. When I attempt the install I get this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Installing Plugin: BotDetect WordPress CAPTCHA 3.0.Beta1.7
  
  Downloading install package from
  [web path to:]botdetect-wp-captcha.zip…
  Unpacking the package…
  Could not create directory.
  Return to Plugin Installer
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>UPDATE: This seems to have something to do with permissions -- I'm guessing there's some group that wordpress needs to be part of in order to change folders, create files, etc., but I can't figure out what that group should be. I have no www-data group -- I read something somewhere about this being a requirement. Can somebody tell me what groups and permissions need to exist for WP to operate?</p>
  
  <p>UPDATE: I have chmodded the permissions to my plugin and uploads folders to 777. I also have created an FTP user specifically for Wordpress and made the home directory for that user the same as my Wordpress root folder as recommended <a href="http://blog.noizeramp.com/2008/09/10/wordpress-unable-to-locate-wordpress-plugin-directory/" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>. I then changed these lines in the wp-config.php file from:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
  if ( !defined('ABSPATH') )
      define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__ . "/"));
  
  /** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
  require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>to:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
  if ( !defined('ABSPATH') )
      define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__));
  
  /** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
  require_once(ABSPATH . '/wp-settings.php');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This should eliminate the double slash conflict mentioned <a href="http://wordpress.org/support/topic/abspath-question" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>.</p>
  
  <p>Note -- I was also having a problem uploading media but that issues was resolved with the chmod to 777.</p>
  
  <p>Now when I try to install a plugin I get this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Unable to locate WordPress Plugin directory.&lt;br&gt;
  Return to Plugin Installer
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>UPDATE:
  Per suggestions I have run chown -R on my wordpress directory and reverted my wp-config.php file back to this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/** Absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
  if ( !defined('ABSPATH') )
          define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__) . "/");
  
  /** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
  require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My permissions look like this. I still have the problem.</p>
  
  <pre><code>[root@ip-MY_IP/wordpress]# ls -l
  total 180
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache   418 Dec 16 07:07 index.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache 19929 Dec 16 07:07 license.txt
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  7183 Dec 16 07:07 readme.html
  drwxr-xr-x  2 apache apache  4096 Dec 17 14:57 tmp
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  4892 Dec 16 07:07 wp-activate.php
  drwxr-xr-x  9 apache apache  4096 Dec 16 07:07 wp-admin
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache   271 Dec 16 07:07 wp-blog-header.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  4795 Dec 16 07:07 wp-comments-post.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  3087 Dec 16 07:07 wp-config-sample.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  3124 Dec 19 06:10 wp-config.php
  drwxr-xr-x  6 apache apache  4096 Dec 18 21:03 wp-content
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  2932 Dec 16 07:07 wp-cron.php
  drwxr-xr-x 12 apache apache  4096 Dec 16 07:07 wp-includes
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  2380 Dec 16 07:07 wp-links-opml.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  2359 Dec 16 07:07 wp-load.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache 31909 Dec 16 07:07 wp-login.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  8235 Dec 16 07:07 wp-mail.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache 10880 Dec 16 07:07 wp-settings.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache 25665 Dec 16 07:07 wp-signup.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  4026 Dec 16 07:07 wp-trackback.php
  -rw-r--r--  1 apache apache  3015 Dec 16 07:07 xmlrpc.php
  </code></pre>