Wordpress Flash Uploader Fix
Dec 28, 2008 Wordpress
This 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.
- Download the Wordpress zip file from Wordpress: http://wordpress.org/latest.zip
- Next, extract that zip file to your desktop.
- Now, open your FTP client and connect to your server that is hosting Wordpress.
- Navigate to /wp-includes/js/
- Re-upload /swfupload/ from your desktop (in the same directory) and replace the files currently on your server.
- 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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December 31st, 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!
December 31st, 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.
January 1st, 2009 at 3:40 pm
I really liked this post. Can I copy?
Thank you in advance.
Sincerely, Your Reader.
January 1st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Timur, you may, just please link back to the original post. Thanks for asking.
January 3rd, 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!
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I was annoyed to find it was that simple too, Frank, but at least its solved now!
March 4th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Doesn’t work for me on 2.7.1…still can’t do batch uploads.
March 4th, 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.
March 4th, 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.
March 5th, 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.
March 5th, 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
March 5th, 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?
March 5th, 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).
March 5th, 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!
March 5th, 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
March 6th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Sorry I could be of more help, David.
April 2nd, 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!
April 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Thanks, this fix worked! Just have to upload the files… don’t need to clear the cache.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Thanks, this worked for me.
May 2nd, 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.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Thanks, its working!
May 14th, 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.
May 14th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
You’re welcome everyone!
September 1st, 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?