What causes "Unable to create directory {tempPath}" in octobercms/october?

Fix storage permissions: chown -R www-data:www-data storage && chmod -R 775 storage.

octobercms/october · error · ApplicationException

Unable to create directory {tempPath}

Error message

Unable to create directory {tempPath}

What it means

ThemeImport::import() writes the uploaded zip to temp_path() and then creates a fresh oc* staging directory to extract into; it throws when File::makeDirectory($tempPath) returns false. This is the import-side twin of the export failure: the storage/temp directory is not writable by the PHP process, the disk is full, or the filesystem is read-only.

Source

Thrown at modules/cms/models/ThemeImport.php:124

        $this->theme = $theme;
        $this->fill($data);

        try {
            $file = $this->uploaded_file()->withDeferred($sessionKey)->first();
            if (!$file) {
                throw new ApplicationException('There is no file attached to import!');
            }

            $themePath = $this->theme->getPath();
            $tempPath = temp_path() . '/'.uniqid('oc');
            $zipName = uniqid('oc');
            $zipPath = temp_path().'/'.$zipName;

            File::put($zipPath, $file->getContents());

            if (!File::makeDirectory($tempPath)) {
                throw new ApplicationException('Unable to create directory '.$tempPath);
            }

            Zip::extract($zipPath, $tempPath);

            if (File::isDirectory($tempPath.'/meta')) {
                $this->copyDirectory($tempPath.'/meta', $themePath.'/meta');
            }

            foreach ($this->folders as $folder) {
                if (!array_key_exists($folder, $this->getFoldersOptions())) {
                    continue;
                }

                $this->copyDirectory($tempPath.'/'.$folder, $themePath.'/'.$folder);
            }

            File::deleteDirectory($tempPath);
            File::delete($zipPath);

View on GitHub (pinned to b608633a7e)

Solutions

Fix storage permissions: chown -R www-data:www-data storage && chmod -R 775 storage.
Verify writability and space: is_writable(temp_path()) and disk_free_space(temp_path()) must both pass.
Mount a writable volume at storage/ in containerized deployments.
Clean stale oc* files from storage/temp and retry the import.

Example fix

# before: import throws 'Unable to create directory {tempPath}'
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage && sudo chmod -R 775 storage

# after
php artisan tinker
>>> is_writable(temp_path());   // true - import extracts cleanly

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

$temp = temp_path();
if (!is_writable($temp) || disk_free_space($temp) < 200 * 1024 * 1024) {
    // block import: staging dir + extracted archive need writable space
}

Try / catch

try {
    $themeImport->import($theme, $data, $sessionKey);
} catch (ApplicationException $e) {
    // report storage/temp permissions or disk space; sweep stale oc* dirs
}

Prevention

Fix storage permissions during provisioning, not after import failures.
Size temp space for at least twice the largest theme zip (zip + extracted tree).
Clean storage/temp of oc* leftovers from failed runs.

When it happens

Trigger: Running a theme import right after a zip upload when storage/temp is not writable, the volume is out of space (note the zip was just written, so quota may have been consumed by it), or the app runs on a read-only filesystem.

Common situations: Same environments as export failures: hardened shared hosting, read-only containers, exhausted quotas; also large archives filling the disk between File::put($zipPath) and the mkdir call.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of octobercms/october@b608633a7e (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/84e301318b84d474. Report an issue: GitHub.