WordPress Image Upload HTTP Error

I have been enjoying using the latest version of WordPress but i am getting seriously pissed off with the fact that every time i try and upload an image i am presented with some red text that tells me “HTTP Error”.

As you can see that text is really not very helpful, so its hard to find out exactly what the issue with WordPress is. Now i have been searching the net for the answers and the most common answer is to insert this code into your .htaccess.

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

However, if like me you tried this and it didn’t work, your problem might be something a lot more strange.

[JUMP TO SOLUTION WITHOUT READING MY FINDINGS]

I got onto my hosts because i thought it might be something a bit more serious on the web server, when George (the web host guy) tried to upload an image he managed to do it ok without any sort of problem, i thought it was a bit weird so asked what OS and browser he was using and it turns out it was XP and IE.

I finished off the chat and booted my MacBook into XP mode, opened up IE and sure enough i could upload an image into WordPress, how fucking weird? Well next i opened Firefox in XP and tried to do it… worked again.

So i booted back into OSX and tried it from Firefox… didn’t work, so i opened up Safari.. didn’t work, i even asked the Evil Green Donkey and some others in my office to try it from their Macs… didn’t work.

For what ever reason which i really can’t get my head around, it seems that this is an issue that is specifically with Flash on the mac, it doesn’t even seem browser related. And i have tried this on over 6 different installs of WordPress on multiple hosting accounts.


I reinstalled flash for the mac and tried every possible solution to this problem which are listed on the wordpress blog and on another site i found and still no joy. The ONLY way i can upload images to any of my blogs using OSX is to disable the flash image uploader by using the no-flash-uploader plugin, this reverts it back to the html version. To use, simply put that file into your /wp-content/plugins/ folder and then activate it through the plugins section of your admin area.

Now i can have images again, but i do hope that someone finds the issue and fixes it, in the mean time enjoy a picture that proves that none of this is an issue with my hosting and that images work fine once the flash uploader has been disabled. Now all i need to do is install the above mentioned plugin on all of my sites :o(

As usual, please leave a comment if you have experienced this issue.

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Kester
15 years ago

Thank you SO much. On OSX too, and nothing else worked.

You’re a star.

Zaman
Zaman
11 years ago
Reply to  Kester

I was using WordPress 3.4.1 version after upgrading 3.4.2 version i was facing the HTTP Error problem when tried to up load image and activating the plugin, editing the .htaccess file and so on didnt worked for me, problem sucked my 10 hours, this is a bug for 3.4.2 version, i uploaded the older version script 3.4.1 then it worked for me.

frebro
frebro
15 years ago

Yes, this solved the issue for me. I’m also on Mac OS X Leopard with Flash 9.0.124.0, and using the latest Safari for WP admin. WordPress stopped generating thumbnails for me though. Whatever size I choose to include it always uses the original size.

Aditya Kuber
15 years ago

Hell yea! I drove myself crazy trying to solve it. And like you, drove my host up the wall to!

Trying the no-flash one now… but I’m never going to IE! I’m happy with Mac + FF!

trackback

[…] You can check it out at https://www.chewie.co.uk/general/wordpress-image-upload-http-error/ […]

kristarella
15 years ago

Have you upgraded to 2.6.1 yet? Are you still having this problem.

I’m having problems too and they’re not fixed by the htaccess solution.

Will
15 years ago

Well, it’s pretty weird. I uploaded the no-flash plugin and like those above, the stupid HTTP error is gone and I can deal with images.

On WordPress 2.5.1 using Sea Monkey for Admin with Mac OS 10.4.11. But the funny thing is that this has just started happening. This makes me think there is a plugin conflict. Bad Behaviour has long been deactivated so it must be another one.

In the interim I’ve been uploading images with FTP and coding them as if I was on a web site years ago. May just continue with this method until I take the time to deactivate one plugin after another to see who the culprit is.

Thanks mucho for the valuable tip.

Jeremy
15 years ago

Thank you SO much for this! I began hating WordPress because of that horrid Flash Uploader. The plug-in cured my hatred for the blogging platform!

trackback
15 years ago

[…] very enlightening article on the now infamous WordPress “Http Error”. After reading the article I wasn’t able to fully diagnose the problem which was occurring, however, I was able to find […]

PeeKa
15 years ago
n1ce
15 years ago

I have the same problem but XP and Firefox. Possible fix posted here: http://wpwatch.net/2008/10/14/wordpress-image-flash-uploader-generating-a-http-error-message/

Tutorialvine.com
15 years ago

That plugin actually did the trick for me!

Well, not really, but it did remove the problem for the customer, who does not care which version she is using.

Thanks for making me aware of that plugin

PerS
15 years ago

Thanks for sharing this 🙂

I made a small modification since I needed it for wpmu (i.e. both mac and non-mac users):

add_filter('flash_uploader', 'noflashuploader');
function noflashuploader(){
$user_agent = isset($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) ? strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) : '';

if(strpos($user_agent, 'mac') !== false) {
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
}

for wpmu I uploaded it to the muplugins directory

Sam
Sam
15 years ago

Thanks for sharing this. I have been trying to solve this same problem for few months now and nothing worked. But today I downloaded flash player 10 (I was using version 9) and everything works great !

Im using wp 2.7

Adrian
15 years ago

I’m posting this because I’ve been tearing my hair out for weeks trying to suss this out, and I couldn’t find any solutions online.

When I tried to use the Flash uploader in WordPress 2.7 with a Mac (both Safari and Firefox) with Flash 10 I would get an HTTP Error message, whereas I could upload fine from a PC, both IE and Firefox, with Flash 10.

After having gone through lots of ideas, I finally hit on the fact that the site was behind an htaccess / htpaswd restriction because it was in development and I didn’t want other people to see it.

When I commented those lines out of the htaccess file it worked perfectly.

I have a feeling that this also applies to some plugins, like the WordPress Authentication Plugin, with which I had the same problems. (I can’t check this, because that blog has to stay on 2.6 for various reasons, and the 2.6 Flash uploader doesn’t seem to work at all with Flash 10).

I’m guessing it’s because Flash is more tightly integrated with browsers in Windows, whereas perhaps Flash on a Mac doesn’t pick up the authentication information from the browsers. Or something…

joelnagy
joelnagy
14 years ago
Reply to  Adrian

I had been searching for a solution to this issue for a couple of days and realized that the authentication was issue when I read your comment. Thanx a lot.

ToolboxCreations
13 years ago
Reply to  Adrian

Ah, damn, that's it! Thank you!

gimpusmons
gimpusmons
15 years ago

This is not a Mac-only problem. I use Vista 64 with WordPress 2.7 and the Flash image uploader in WordPress stopped working for me recently but only in Firefox 3. It still worked fine in Explorer 8 Beta 2. My fix was simple. I reinstalled the Flash browser plugin for Firefox and it started working again immediately.

mccormicky
14 years ago

In my case it is not Mac or Windows or the server or the full moon – it’s htaccess + .htpasswd.

I can’t use the flash based uploader because the site is protected by .htaccess and .htpasswd just like Adrian’s site but unlike Adrian I can’t comment out the lines causing this problem because I don’t know what they are and it might make the site accessible to all while I am updating(not good on a paid-access-only site).

So I leave .htaccess alone and use the Flexible Upload plugin to be able to upload multiple images and Scissors plugin to be able to resize them. I also use Faster Image Insert plugin.

Flexible Upload does not work well with WP 2.7.1 – it creates a PHP error right on the Post editing page but this error does not stop you from being able to upload.Although all the nifty Flexible Upload options are rendered useless….

Because of the PHP error I worry that using the depreciated plugin is making the site insecure so I am always on the look out for a real fix not the sloppy mess that I am using!
Which is how I found your post. Unfortunately for me I have to stay with the sloppy mess until a non flash multiple uploader, 2.7.1 compatible plugin or tweak comes around.

Zahrah
14 years ago

Hey there,
Well, the message I keep getting refers to some sort of 'data connection error'.
No idea what that is. Anyway, I'm going to give your method a go, even though you had a slightly different problem. You never know, it might just work. I'll report back when I've tried it. Thanks.

Wade
Wade
14 years ago

I was having the same problem with FF3.5/XP . I just tried the 'Browser uploader' and got the following error;
You have used your space quota. Please delete files before uploading.

I'm contacting my admin to increase our quota…

dbarradas
dbarradas
14 years ago

try this:

Here is what they said:

“Modsecurity was blocking the useragent of the flash uploader. This is common. I disabled the block.”

When I asked for more details about where exactly they made this change, they said:

“I simply removed the useragent block in /usr/local/apache/conf/modsec2.user.conf”

Hopefully someone else will find this useful.

(this did the trick for me … via http://wordpress.org/support/topic/293853)

lisapeet
lisapeet
13 years ago

I was facing the same problem in Firefox now I have switched on to XP & its working fine.

Easy Essay
Easy Essay
13 years ago

Thank you SO much for this! I began hating WordPress because of that horrid Flash Uploader. The plug-in cured my hatred for the blogging platform!

Thoughtcat
Thoughtcat
13 years ago

I'm using Firefox on Windows 7 and I got the error. I added the code snippet referred to just below the second paragraph above into .htaccess and it solved it straightaway. Cheers 🙂

Molekula
13 years ago

At first this solution didn't work, but then we noticed one difference in our error log (we are using WP3). It was not async-upload.php but upload.php, so this works for us:

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

Zudie
Zudie
13 years ago
Reply to  Molekula

Just had my HTTP error fixed. Spent hours trying out different solutions in vain. Finally contacted my hoster who whitelisted the WP/Flash Upload so it would not trigger any mod_security rules anymore.

Hope this helps someone.
Editing htaccess did not help in my case!

Ava T.
13 years ago
Reply to  Zudie

Hei Zudie, do you use vps account? Because I'm having the same problem starting last week with namecheap hosting. But when I ask them about mod_security rule, this is their answer:

“Yes, we use mod_secure on our shared servers but unfortunately we can't change the shared server configuration per your request.”

Perhaps anyone can help how to solve this?

Molekula
13 years ago

It didn't work for me at first, but then i saw the problem in error log. This worked:

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

Agraj.co.uk
12 years ago

I want some selected images in WP post, is it possible ?

Andrew
12 years ago

Disabling the Flash Uploader isn't exactly a solution.  It's more of a punishment.

Paradise
12 years ago

Thank you Chewie  for this information..
Good works

Solafidehair
Solafidehair
12 years ago

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It worked!  Who needs a flash uploader anyway? :o)

ales
ales
12 years ago

in my case, the issewas, my wordpress folder was password protected. As soon i removed protection, flash upload works.

Mihai Coman
12 years ago

Hello there.

I end up to your blog after a long debugging session of WP. I'm using the the latest WP 3.2.1 (fresh) and for a while now I get the http error (Internal server error when using the browser uploader) when trying to upload some images. I add htaccess lines, i installed the plugin and still nothing. Can you please give me a hint on this big issue?

Thanks, Mihai

Anthony Colfelt
Anthony Colfelt
11 years ago

Thanks. Can't believe we are here 4 years after you posted this, and WordPress STILL has the same issue… your solution still works though!

Noxion
Noxion
11 years ago

Solution after Media Temple upgrates on Plesk and PHP.

Edit the following file:
`/etc/httpd/conf.d/fcgid.conf`

Add this line (just below all of the other lines that start with ‘Fcgid’):

`FcgidMaxRequestLen 1073741824`

Restart your Apache web-server service with this command:

`service httpd restart`

Yey!

Susanta Kumar Sahoo
11 years ago

I too have this problem. please tell me how to fix this problem

Daniel Paul
10 years ago

thanks for the fix 🙂

exforme
exforme
10 years ago

works for me ! thanks

Arifhashim
Arifhashim
12 years ago

I tried this solution but now after trying to upload a small size picture, browser takes forever and shows the message “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”.  I tried different browser but same issue. Please help.

Sunganani L. Manjolo
10 years ago

Didn’t help at all

Kelly Kabouraki
Kelly Kabouraki
9 years ago

Helpppp I dont understand ! My blog wp 3.8.1 worked just fine. Suddenly I cant upload image in red box it says http error! Help meeee

Jason Stancis
Jason Stancis
8 years ago

Worked for me, can’t believe that WordPress is still having this issue.