Title: chmod impossible
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# chmod impossible

 *  [sven](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sven/)
 * (@sven)
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/)
 * I am very new to blogging and php, so I apologize if this is a very basic question.
   I was trying to copy an updated CSS file into my wordpress directory, but access
   is denied. So I tried to change the permissions on the CSS file already on the
   server with chmod, but the permission is denied. What am I to do? I cannot change
   permissions of any file in the wordpress directory. Thank you in advance for 
   any help, Sven

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

 *  [jaykul](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jaykul/)
 * (@jaykul)
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-25894)
 * 0.0
    O yeah, uhm…. who put the files there? It sounds like someone else installed
   it, and neglected to give you rights to it.
 *  Thread Starter [sven](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sven/)
 * (@sven)
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-25896)
 * Actually, I put the files there myself. I was upgrading from b2, but had problems,
   so I backed up the mySQL databases and deleted the ones from the server. Then
   I copied the WordPress files into the b2 directory and installed a new blog. 
   At last, I reimported the databases overwriting some of the blank ones newly 
   created, like b2posts, users, comments… Could this be the origin of my problems?
   Would it be best to start in a new directory again? Thank you.
 *  [southerngal](https://wordpress.org/support/users/southerngal/)
 * (@southerngal)
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-25903)
 * I would start with everything fresh. Sounds like you have a corrupted something.
 *  Anonymous
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-25904)
 * How are you putting the files there? If its a samba type share, then whomever
   its mounted as might not have the rights to put it there.
    Why don’t you do a
   ls -l listing (assuming its unix) of the files.
 *  Thread Starter [sven](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sven/)
 * (@sven)
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-25909)
 * Ok, since I am not very familiar with unix, I will simply try a fresh install.
   Thank you for the tips.
 *  Anonymous
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-25961)
 * That is such windows mentality 🙂
 *  Anonymous
 * [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-26000)
 * hehe, yep. It probably wasn’t very hard to fix for anyone that might run into
   the same thing. Also if an ISP is serving it, you could just have them change
   the permissions for you.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

The topic ‘chmod impossible’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 7 replies
 * 4 participants
 * Last reply from: Anonymous
 * Last activity: [22 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/chmod-impossible/#post-26000)
 * Status: not resolved

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