In PHP scripts, whether calling include(), require(), fopen(), or their derivatives such as include_once, require_once, or even, move_uploaded_file(), one often runs into an error or warning:
Failed to open stream : No such file or directory.
What is a good process to quickly find the root cause of the problem?
There are many reasons why one might run into this error and thus a good checklist of what to check first helps considerably.
Let's consider that we are troubleshooting the following line:
require "/path/to/file"
Checklist
1. Check the file path for typos
either check manually (by visually checking the path)
or move whatever is called by require* or include* to its own variable, echo it, copy it, and try accessing it from a terminal:
$path = "/path/to/file";
echo "Path : $path";
require "$path";
Then, in a terminal:
cat <file path pasted>
2. Check that the file path is correct regarding relative vs absolute path considerations
if it is starting by a forward slash "/" then it is not referring to the root of your website's folder (the document root), but to the root of your server.
for example, your website's directory might be /users/tony/htdocs
if it is not starting by a forward slash then it is either relying on the include path (see below) or the path is relative. If it is relative, then PHP will calculate relatively to the path of the current working directory.
thus, not relative to the path of your web site's root, or to the file where you are typing
for that reason, always use absolute file paths
Best practices :
In order to make your script robust in case you move things around, while still generating an absolute path at runtime, you have 2 options :
use require __DIR__ . "/relative/path/from/current/file". The __DIR__ magic constant returns the directory of the current file.
define a SITE_ROOT constant yourself :
at the root of your web site's directory, create a file, e.g. config.php
in config.php, write
define('SITE_ROOT', __DIR__);
in every file where you want to reference the site root folder, include config.php, and then use the SITE_ROOT constant wherever you like :
require_once __DIR__."/../config.php";
...
require_once SITE_ROOT."/other/file.php";
These 2 practices also make your application more portable because it does not rely on ini settings like the include path.
3. Check your include path
Another way to include files, neither relatively nor purely absolutely, is to rely on the include path. This is often the case for libraries or frameworks such as the Zend framework.
Such an inclusion will look like this :
include "Zend/Mail/Protocol/Imap.php"
In that case, you will want to make sure that the folder where "Zend" is, is part of the include path.
You can check the include path with :
echo get_include_path();
You can add a folder to it with :
set_include_path(get_include_path().":"."/path/to/new/folder");
4. Check that your server has access to that file
It might be that all together, the user running the server process (Apache or PHP) simply doesn't have permission to read from or write to that file.
To check under what user the server is running you can use posix_getpwuid :
$user = posix_getpwuid(posix_geteuid());
var_dump($user);
To find out the permissions on the file, type the following command in the terminal:
ls -l <path/to/file>
and look at permission symbolic notation
5. Check PHP settings
If none of the above worked, then the issue is probably that some PHP settings forbid it to access that file.
Three settings could be relevant :
open_basedir
If this is set PHP won't be able to access any file outside of the specified directory (not even through a symbolic link).
However, the default behavior is for it not to be set in which case there is no restriction
This can be checked by either calling phpinfo() or by using ini_get("open_basedir")
You can change the setting either by editing your php.ini file or your httpd.conf file
safe mode
if this is turned on restrictions might apply. However, this has been removed in PHP 5.4. If you are still on a version that supports safe mode upgrade to a PHP version that is still being supported.
allow_url_fopen and allow_url_include
this applies only to including or opening files through a network process such as http:// not when trying to include files on the local file system
this can be checked with ini_get("allow_url_include") and set with ini_set("allow_url_include", "1")
Corner cases
If none of the above enabled to diagnose the problem, here are some special situations that could happen :
1. The inclusion of library relying on the include path
It can happen that you include a library, for example, the Zend framework, using a relative or absolute path. For example :
require "/usr/share/php/libzend-framework-php/Zend/Mail/Protocol/Imap.php"
But then you still get the same kind of error.
This could happen because the file that you have (successfully) included, has itself an include statement for another file, and that second include statement assumes that you have added the path of that library to the include path.
For example, the Zend framework file mentioned before could have the following include :
include "Zend/Mail/Protocol/Exception.php"
which is neither an inclusion by relative path, nor by absolute path. It is assuming that the Zend framework directory has been added to the include path.
In such a case, the only practical solution is to add the directory to your include path.
2. SELinux
If you are running Security-Enhanced Linux, then it might be the reason for the problem, by denying access to the file from the server.
To check whether SELinux is enabled on your system, run the sestatus command in a terminal. If the command does not exist, then SELinux is not on your system. If it does exist, then it should tell you whether it is enforced or not.
To check whether SELinux policies are the reason for the problem, you can try turning it off temporarily. However be CAREFUL, since this will disable protection entirely. Do not do this on your production server.
setenforce 0
If you no longer have the problem with SELinux turned off, then this is the root cause.
To solve it, you will have to configure SELinux accordingly.
The following context types will be necessary :
httpd_sys_content_t for files that you want your server to be able to read
httpd_sys_rw_content_t for files on which you want read and write access
httpd_log_t for log files
httpd_cache_t for the cache directory
For example, to assign the httpd_sys_content_t context type to your website root directory, run :
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_content_t "/path/to/root(/.*)?"
restorecon -Rv /path/to/root
If your file is in a home directory, you will also need to turn on the httpd_enable_homedirs boolean :
setsebool -P httpd_enable_homedirs 1
In any case, there could be a variety of reasons why SELinux would deny access to a file, depending on your policies. So you will need to enquire into that. Here is a tutorial specifically on configuring SELinux for a web server.
3. Symfony
If you are using Symfony, and experiencing this error when uploading to a server, then it can be that the app's cache hasn't been reset, either because app/cache has been uploaded, or that cache hasn't been cleared.
You can test and fix this by running the following console command:
cache:clear
4. Non ACSII characters inside Zip file
Apparently, this error can happen also upon calling zip->close() when some files inside the zip have non-ASCII characters in their filename, such as "é".
A potential solution is to wrap the file name in utf8_decode() before creating the target file.
Credits to Fran Cano for identifying and suggesting a solution to this issue
To add to the (really good) existing answer
Shared Hosting Software
open_basedir is one that can stump you because it can be specified in a web server configuration. While this is easily remedied if you run your own dedicated server, there are some shared hosting software packages out there (like Plesk, cPanel, etc) that will configure a configuration directive on a per-domain basis. Because the software builds the configuration file (i.e. httpd.conf) you cannot change that file directly because the hosting software will just overwrite it when it restarts.
With Plesk, they provide a place to override the provided httpd.conf called vhost.conf. Only the server admin can write this file. The configuration for Apache looks something like this
<Directory /var/www/vhosts/domain.com>
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_admin_flag engine on
php_admin_flag safe_mode off
php_admin_value open_basedir "/var/www/vhosts/domain.com:/tmp:/usr/share/pear:/local/PEAR"
</IfModule>
</Directory>
Have your server admin consult the manual for the hosting and web server software they use.
File Permissions
It's important to note that executing a file through your web server is very different from a command line or cron job execution. The big difference is that your web server has its own user and permissions. For security reasons that user is pretty restricted. Apache, for instance, is often apache, www-data or httpd (depending on your server). A cron job or CLI execution has whatever permissions that the user running it has (i.e. running a PHP script as root will execute with permissions of root).
A lot of times people will solve a permissions problem by doing the following (Linux example)
chmod 777 /path/to/file
This is not a smart idea, because the file or directory is now world writable. If you own the server and are the only user then this isn't such a big deal, but if you're on a shared hosting environment you've just given everyone on your server access.
What you need to do is determine the user(s) that need access and give only those them access. Once you know which users need access you'll want to make sure that
That user owns the file and possibly the parent directory (especially the parent directory if you want to write files). In most shared hosting environments this won't be an issue, because your user should own all the files underneath your root. A Linux example is shown below
chown apache:apache /path/to/file
The user, and only that user, has access. In Linux, a good practice would be chmod 600 (only owner can read and write) or chmod 644 (owner can write but everyone can read)
You can read a more extended discussion of Linux/Unix permissions and users here
Look at the exact error
My code worked fine on all machines but only on this one started giving problem (which used to work find I guess). Used echo "document_root" path to debug and also looked closely at the error, found this
Warning:
include(D:/MyProjects/testproject//functions/connections.php):
failed to open stream:
You can easily see where the problems are. The problems are // before functions
$document_root = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
echo "root: $document_root";
include($document_root.'/functions/connections.php');
So simply remove the lading / from include and it should work fine. What is interesting is this behaviors is different on different versions. I run the same code on Laptop, Macbook Pro and this PC, all worked fine untill. Hope this helps someone.
Copy past the file location in the browser to make sure file exists. Sometimes files get deleted unexpectedly (happened with me) and it was also the issue in my case.
Samba Shares
If you have a Linux test server and you work from a Windows Client, the Samba share interferes with the chmod command. So, even if you use:
chmod -R 777 myfolder
on the Linux side it is fully possible that the Unix Group\www-data still doesn't have write access. One working solution if your share is set up that Windows admins are mapped to root: From Windows, open the Permissions, disable Inheritance for your folder with copy, and then grant full access for www-data.
Add script with query parameters
That was my case. It actually links to question #4485874, but I'm going to explain it here shortly.
When you try to require path/to/script.php?parameter=value, PHP looks for file named script.php?parameter=value, because UNIX allows you to have paths like this.
If you are really need to pass some data to included script, just declare it as $variable=... or $GLOBALS[]=... or other way you like.
Aside from the other excellent answers, one thing I overlooked on Windows while writing a simple script: This error will be shown when trying to open a file with characters that Windows does not support in file names.
For example:
$file = fopen(date('Y-m-d_H:i:s'), 'w+');
Will give:
fopen(2022-06-01_22:53:03): Failed to open stream: No such file or directory in ...
Windows does not like : in file names, as well as a number of other characters.
The following PHP settings in php.ini if set to non-existent directory can also raise
PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: Permission denied in
Unknown on line 0
sys_temp_dir
upload_tmp_dir
session.save_path
PHP - Failed to open stream : No such file or directory in mac
For example I will upload a picture. But I am getting this error. First thing i will do right click on the image and get info.
$thePathOfMyPicture = "/Users/misstugba/Desktop/";
use with function
if(move_uploaded_file($_FILES["file"]["tmp_name"],$thePathOfMyPicture.$_FILES["file"]["name"])){
echo "image uploaded successfully";
}
For me I got this error because I was trying to read a file which required HTTP auth, with a username and password. Hope that helps others. Might be another corner case.
Edit
You can check if this type of authentication is present by inspecting the headers:
$file_headers = get_headers($url);
if (!$file_headers) echo 'File headers missing';
else if (strpos($file_headers[0], '401 Unauthorized') > -1) echo '401 Unauthorized';
In PHP, start Apache then write you DB name and password if exist in your environment(.env).
i'm working on this joomla site and im not able to upload any extension. if i use normal upload method i get JFolder::create: Could not create directory
Unable to create destination
if i use upload from directory i get Copy failed
JInstaller: :Install: Failed to copy file
i have tried so many solutions found in joomla support forum but none worked for me.
in desperation i even changed tmp ermissions into 777 and now directory permissions (i know its bad) list shows that tmp is writable but show the warning The PHP temporary directory is not writeable by the Joomla! instance, which may cause issues when attempting to upload extensions to Joomla!. If you are having issues uploading extensions, check the '/tmp' and set it to be writeable and see if this fixes the issue. in extensions manager-> warnings
i was wondering whether open_basedir in defect. In my php info file i have
/srv/www/vhosts/domain/httpdocs/:/tmp/ - no value . how can i know open_basedir is in defect? and how can i solve this extensions matter?
The problem may be because upload_tmp_dir isn't set in php.
Look in SITE > SYSTEM INFORMATION > PHP INFORMATION and check if upload_tmp_dir has been set. If not, you need to edit php.ini
On our servers (which use open base dir), the setting is:
upload_tmp_dir=/tmp
This value could be different for you, depending on your server configuration.
Set permission to 777
use full path for logs and tmp e.g.:
/var/www/vhosts/mydomain/httpdocs/tmp
In the Joomla Backend, go to:
Site >> System Information >> Directory Permissions
and see if the "tmp" folder says "Writable"
I had the same problem with one of my shared hosts. The issue was that even though I had set literally everything to 777 (purely for testing purposes), I didn't have file ownership. If this is the case for you too, then you will have to talk to your hosting provider.
I am trying to create a folder and fopen a file inside that folder.
mkdir works fine for creating the folder (as the parent folder has 777 permission), but the resulting folder is owned by user id 99 while the script itself is running under cpanel with user id 32024. Now when I try to create a file inside this folder, I get:
SAFE MODE Restriction in effect. The script whose uid is 32024 is not allowed to access /<path_of_file>/<folder_created_by_php> owned by uid 99
This error is fully justifiable as I am trying to write to a folder owned by someone else but how can a script running under 32024 create a folder with owner as 99? Anything wrong with the way server is behaving? Any ideas?
Your problem is related to the safe mode setting on php:
Check this out for more information: http://www.serverschool.com/dedicated-servers/what-is-php-safe-mode/ You'll have all the information to understand what is safe mode actually...
Just ask for your developers NOT to use safe_mode as it is a features unrecommended on all servers these days...
You can try to include both users 99 and 32024 to the same group and chmod('yourfilename', 0775) after you create that file
I have a PHP web application running on IIS, which allows a user to upload a file from a simple html form. The uploaded file is then moved to a folder on another server. This is working correctly on Apache, but fails on IIS with the error:
function['move_uploaded_file']failed to open stream: Permission denied
in...
I've checked all the permissions on the directories. If I run a simple PHP script through the command line to copy a file from the server into the folder on the other server it works correctly, so I suspect the problem is with IIS.
if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES ["file"] ["tmp_name"], "\\\\000.00.0.00\\tia\\web\\upload\\" .$_FILES["file"]["name"])) {
This has been covered already here. Quoting the reason here:
You have mapped target directory to a share such as \server2\files. These mappings are only available to the current users (eg, the admin account), not to the IUSR account that your php is probably running as (assuming IIS). Solution, don't use mappings, instead use the full 'unc' path name, ie '\server\share\folder\file.ext', also remember that the IUSR account will need access to these shares/folders/files
From what I can see in your comment, you are using a \\ prefixed network share as the target for your move_uploaded_file() operation.
I'll bet a beer that PHP isn't allowed to access that share. Remember, PHP runs with IIS's permissions!
Try saving to a local, globally writable path first. If that works, you know you have to fix the share's permissions.
im running on windows xp and i am an administrator, im using the latest xampp bundle available from their site and i receive these kinds of errors when i use file manipulation functions on php...
Warning: chmod() [function.chmod]: Permission denied in...
Warning: opendir(/feeds) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Permission denied in
do i need to set any environment variables for apache before i can use these functions?
but i think the problem lies only on my folder access permissions, but if so, how do i set a folder's accessibility properties on windows?
Does your php worker process have the necessary permissions?
Make sure whatever user the process is running as has proper permissions for the directory it is puking on.
right click on the folder, permissions...
it appears that my script referred to an inexistent directory as i just specified $dir='/feeds';it works fine on my machine in our office but i wonder why with the same configurations here on my pc at home it doesnt
as reference for other people who might have the same problem in the future my answer would be
check and make sure you are pointing your script to the right file :)
You can try setting the umask as well before the chmod like so;
$old_mask = umask(0);
chmod('/path/to/file', 0755);
umask($old_mask);
More information on umask can be found at PHP's Manual