Troubleshooting Backup Errors

A number of errors may appear when clicking the Test Connection button on the Setup > Other > Database Backups page.

SFTP Backup - Login Failed

This error indicates that the system reached the FTP server but it rejected the login details.

To troubleshoot this, make certain that the username and password that you provided are valid. Try copying and pasting the username and password into your FTP client to confirm.

(S)FTP Backup - Uploading Failed

This error indicates that the connection to the FTP server succeeded but the system could not navigate to the destination directory or did not have write permissions.

To troubleshoot this, make certain that:

  • The FTP destination directory exists and is accessible using the FTP user.
  • The file path is relative to the FTP account's login folder.
  • The file path contains a trailing slash (for example, backups/).
  • The file path does not contain a preceding slash.
  • The FTP user has write permissions to the destination directory.

(S)FTP: Unable to open for writing

This error indicates that WHMCS cannot open a test file in the PHP system directory (the sys_temp_dir PHP setting) via the PHP fopen function.

To troubleshoot this, make certain that:

  • The php.ini file includes a valid sys_temp_dir value.
  • The PHP system temporary directory has writeable permissions.
  • The fopen function is not disabled in the PHP configuration.

(S)FTP: Unable to write to temp file

This error indicates that WHMCS cannot write to a test file in the PHP system directory (the sys_temp_dir PHP setting) via the PHP fwrite function.

To troubleshoot this, make certain that:

  • The PHP system temporary directory has writeable permissions.
  • The fwrite function is not disabled in the PHP configuration.