Issue with copy() - php

Question

I'm not much of a PHPer, but I'm looking at a clients very old site as he's getting some errors.
It's an ancient, bespoke CMS, going back to Feb 2007.
When trying to upload an image the error:
Warning: copy() [function.copy]: Unable to access in blah/blah/blah
This is the part of the code in question:
$path= "images/".$new_file_name;
if($ufile !=none)
{
if(copy($HTTP_POST_FILES['ufile']['tmp_name'], $path))
{
echo "<h1>uploading...</h1>";
$img_name = $_POST['name'];
mysql_query("UPDATE properties SET img_main='$Xnew_file_name_small',img_main_name='$img_name' WHERE ref='$ref'");
$small_image=imagecreatefromjpeg('images/'.$new_file_name);
imagejpeg($small_image, 'images/'.$new_file_name_small, 50);
unlink('images/'.$new_file_name);
echo("<meta http-equiv='refresh' content='0;URL=upload_scipt_main_2.php?ref=". $ref."&img=".$new_file_name_small." '/>");
}
else
{
echo "Error";
}
}
What I'd like to know is if that means that the copy function doesn't have write access to the path it's trying to write to.
Also, as the site is so old, could this error be caused by the PHP version being upgraded?
It's on 5.3.14 now.
I realise that this is probably a shot in the dark and there could be a ton of reasons why it doesn't work and the bit of code posted isn't much of a help but any guidance at all would be really useful.

Answer 1

As the error-message included in your question is rather cryptic, i.e. blah/blah/blah, I can't tell if it's applying to the uploaded file or the destination. If the error is regarding the destination, that means that the images/ directory isn't writable by your web-server (such as Apache). Updating the folder's permissions to be writable may be enough to solve the issue.
On the other hand, if the error is regarding the uploaded file, I will have to agree with your statement that the error could be caused by the PHP version being upgraded.
According to the documentation, $HTTP_POST_FILES has been deprecated for some time in favor of the new(ish) $_FILES.
On the same topic, it appears that you're using this code to basically "upload a file". With that in mind, you won't want to use copy() but move_uploaded_file().
So, instead of a line like this:
copy($HTTP_POST_FILES['ufile']['tmp_name'], $path)
You'll want to try:
move_uploaded_file($_FILES['ufile']['tmp_name'], $path)
Though you may have it elsewhere, you should also verify whether or not the file has been uploaded; you can achieve this with is_uploaded_file(). In combination with the above, and your sample-code, the following should be what you're aiming for:
if(is_uploaded_file($_FILES['ufile']['tmp_name'])) {
$path= "images/".$new_file_name;
if(move_uploaded_file($_FILES['ufile']['tmp_name'], $path)) {
echo "<h1>uploading...</h1>";
$img_name = $_POST['name'];
mysql_query("UPDATE properties SET img_main='$Xnew_file_name_small',img_main_name='$img_name' WHERE ref='$ref'");
$small_image=imagecreatefromjpeg('images/'.$new_file_name);
imagejpeg($small_image, 'images/'.$new_file_name_small, 50);
unlink('images/'.$new_file_name);
echo("<meta http-equiv='refresh' content='0;URL=upload_scipt_main_2.php?ref=". $ref."&img=".$new_file_name_small." '/>");
} else {
echo "Error: The file could not be moved.";
}
} else {
echo "Error: The file could not be uploaded.";
}