WordPress Flash Uploader Fix

by on December 28, 2008 in Wordpress

thumbThis has been a commonly requested fix, and I know that many people (myself included) have had issues with the Flash Uploader in WordPress 2.7.  Therefore, I browsed the internet and the WordPress forums until someone finally posted a fix.  The issue was not with Flash Player as theorized, but instead something with the upgrade.  The Flash Uploader wouldn’t load the “Select Files” button, and therefore all images would have to be uploaded with the Browser Uploader.

Alright, well let’s take a look at the fix.

Okay, this is a pretty quick fix.

  1. Download the WordPress zip file from WordPress: http://wordpress.org/latest.zip
  2. Next, extract that zip file to your desktop.
  3. Now, open your FTP client and connect to your server that is hosting WordPress.
  4. Navigate to /wp-includes/js/
  5. Re-upload /swfupload/ from your desktop (in the same directory) and replace the files currently on your server.
  6. Clear your browser cache.

And you’re done!  Hopefully this helps out the people who are puzzling over it.  If you have a better solution, please let me know, but this is the best solution I’ve been able to find.  Hopefully the WordPress developers fix this issue in later versions.

Thanks for reading, and happy blogging!

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27 Responses to “WordPress Flash Uploader Fix”

  1. Taylor Gerring December 31, 2008 at 2:36 pm #

    It seems to me, that the only file missing was /wp-includes/js/swfupload/swfupload.swf

    After I uploaded that file, I just closed and re-opened the “Add image” modal. No clearing of cache necessary!

  2. Brukhar December 31, 2008 at 2:47 pm #

    Thanks for the feedback Taylor. I just included that step as a precaution, depending on the browser it might keep the previous version in cache. But it might not be truly necessary. :)

  3. TimurAlhimenkov January 1, 2009 at 3:40 pm #

    I really liked this post. Can I copy?
    Thank you in advance.

    Sincerely, Your Reader.

  4. Brukhar January 1, 2009 at 3:47 pm #

    Timur, you may, just please link back to the original post. Thanks for asking. :)

  5. Frank January 3, 2009 at 5:24 pm #

    I can’t believe this worked. After messing around with it for weeks.. this is all that had to be done. Lame.

    Thanks!

  6. Brukhar January 3, 2009 at 5:40 pm #

    I was annoyed to find it was that simple too, Frank, but at least its solved now!

  7. David March 4, 2009 at 7:36 pm #

    Doesn’t work for me on 2.7.1…still can’t do batch uploads.

  8. Brukhar March 4, 2009 at 9:10 pm #

    Yeah, this fix was for an older version. I haven’t had a problem with 2.7.1, can you describe what the problem is with the uploader in detail? I will try to figure out what’s wrong.

  9. David March 4, 2009 at 9:28 pm #

    Thanks for your speedy reply.

    This is the same error as with earlier versions — in WordPress, uploading via the Flash Uploader returns an “HTTP Error” and the message “An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.”

    The Apache logs have 401 return codes, like this:

    httpd-p.cvcbike.org-access-log.2009-03-05-00_00_00:216.240.60.130 – - [04/Mar/2009:18:24:17 -0800] “POST /wp-admin/async-upload.php HTTP/1.1″ 401 401 “-” “Adobe Flash Player 9″

    I’m attempting to upload from a Mac running OS 10.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.6.

    Other posts have mentioned adding lines to the .htaccess file. I’ve tried that but it had no effect.

    Thanks in advance for any clues.

  10. Brukhar March 5, 2009 at 9:43 am #

    Hmm…does the Browser Uploader work? The issue with the old versions was that something with the permissions was getting messed up, or something in the old WordPress Flash uploader didn’t get updated properly. The only two things I could think of would be to reupload that particular folder, or to re-set the permissions on that folder. It could be that your Mac is changing the file permissions without your knowledge.

  11. David March 5, 2009 at 10:00 am #

    Yes, Browser Upload works fine. I don’t see any obvious permissions issues on the server side, but just checking: what ownership and permissions should be set?

    thanks

  12. Brukhar March 5, 2009 at 1:26 pm #

    I’m not sure, I will check when I get home and see what I have set on the server.

    When you upgraded, did you use the WordPress automatic upgrade or did you manually update?

  13. David March 5, 2009 at 1:55 pm #

    I did the automatic upgrade.

    Another possibility (or not) is the Flash version. As I mentioned earlier, I’m on a Mac running OS X 10.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.6. I have no idea what Flash version is running (indeed, I don’t even know how to check for Flash version). I don’t recall ever downloading or upgrading Flash from Adobe.

    This browser does run Adblock Plus v.1.0.1, but I do not believe it is the problem. I get the same behavior when I disable Adblock, and also from Safari, which doesn’t run Adblock (and cleared caches on both browsers).

  14. Brukhar March 5, 2009 at 2:09 pm #

    Try updating Flash to see if that fixes it, but I don’t think it would be the problem. Primarily the fix that I posted above deals with the issue where the “Upload” button does not appear. Since it is giving you Apache log errors, it sounds more like a server-side issues, but I’m just guessing at this point.

    Try these articles, see if they solve it:
    http://wordpress.org/support/topic/164999
    http://thethemeblog.com/wordpress/a-solution-to-http-error-using-wordpress-flash-uploader-problem
    http://www.chewie.co.uk/general/wordpress-image-upload-http-error/

    Hopefully those help!

  15. David March 5, 2009 at 11:15 pm #

    OK, so updating Flash on the Mac side did not help. Same errors as in my first post above.

    Thanks much for these links. I’ve tried the first two without any luck. I’ve also tried the third one; it does work, but that’s because it installs a plugin *that disables the flash uploader.*

    Defaulting to the browser uploader is fine as a fallback, but I’m trying to debug why flash uploader doesn’t work.

    thanks

  16. Brukhar March 6, 2009 at 8:01 am #

    Sorry I could be of more help, David. :(

  17. Jesse April 2, 2009 at 3:34 pm #

    hi guys… the pesky HTTP error… just happened to me and I figured it out for me at least.

    I had a password set on my domain through htpsswd… I removed that and images upload with the flash normally…

    hope that helps or leads others in the right direction, thanks!

  18. Erik April 26, 2009 at 5:43 pm #

    Thanks, this fix worked! Just have to upload the files… don’t need to clear the cache.

  19. Greg April 30, 2009 at 10:33 pm #

    Thanks, this worked for me.

  20. David May 2, 2009 at 1:28 pm #

    Yup, same here. This is working now; thanks for the tip.

    So it seems that the flash uploader does not function when Apache password protection is enabled.

  21. Aditya May 9, 2009 at 10:35 am #

    Thanks, its working! :)

  22. Laura May 14, 2009 at 3:04 pm #

    Thanks so much! It’s been really annoying to be restricted to uploading one image at a time.

    It works perfectly now.

  23. Brukhar May 14, 2009 at 3:30 pm #

    You’re welcome everyone!

  24. Trish September 1, 2009 at 8:09 am #

    I have a similar problem, though with 2.8.4. The flash uploader isn’t even shown as an option; all I get is the Browser uploader. It’s not a plugin issue; I only have one running and I had this problem before installing it (it’s the Twitter Tools plugin, btw). I don’t get any error messages; flash uploader simply isn’t there. I don’t use Chrome; I don’t use IE (I use Firefox). Any thoughts?

  25. NatalieMac July 4, 2010 at 6:18 pm #

    Thank you so much. I was tearing my hair out trying every possible fix for the image uploader, and this finally did it.

  26. MCSE September 7, 2010 at 10:16 am #

    Awesome work thank you letting this information to us.
    MCSE

  27. Sly September 19, 2010 at 12:49 pm #

    1.Same error after overwriting uploader directory.

    2.I have a fresh installation of wordpres and i have the same problem.

    3.On the same server another wordpress it’s working fine.

    what’s the problem?

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