If you are getting the error message “Could not create directory. /public_html.” when trying to upgrade WordPress or plugins- and you are on a server running cpanel- good news- one little switch and things will be humming along:

Switch your FTP Server from Pure-FTPor similar FTP to ProFTP. For some reason WordPress doesn’apos;t agree with the FTP server that cPanel uses by default.

via WordPress › Support » 3.0 Plugin Upgrade Bug? Could Not Create Directory.

We had written another post- with a manual solution- inlcuding recreating the Upgrades folder:

The solution to plugins was often to go to the Upgrades folder- and just copy the plugin upgrade file over into the plug-in folder. Or- to delete the Upgrades folder and recreate it with the same permissions: 755

However with the WP upgrade- it’s not getting hung up in the upgrades folder.

Here is our workaround:

Manually update it- which means using an FTP program.We like Transmit on the Mac, but you can also use the free FireFTP plugin for Firefox.

Download the new version- and then copy every file except

via WordPress 3.0.1 auto-update failures.

And if you’ve already had a failure- you may have to delete the hidden file in your root directory to take it out of maintenance mode: .maintenance

The best news about changing the FTP program on the server is that it’s WAY FASTER.