SMF - The package you are trying to install cannot be located

When I attempted to update a Simple Machines Forum (SMF) site from version 2.0.8 to 2.0.9 by choosing SMF 2.0.8 to SMF 2.0.9 upgrade, for the "Package to Upload" under Upload a Package on the Package Manager page for the forum, whch is reachable from the Admin menu, I saw the error message below:

An Error Has Occurred!

Package upload failed due to the following error:
"The package you are trying to install cannot be located. You may want to manually upload the package to your Packages directory."

The system on which the forum resided was running the Linux operating system with Apache HTTP Server software as the web server software. I suspected the issue was a problem with file permissions. I checked the ownership and permissions on the Packages directory beneath the directory where the forum software was stored for the user's forum and checked the permissions on other patch files under that directory. I saw the following:

$ ls -ld Packages
drwxrwxr-x. 3 ann ann 4096 Jul 31  2014 Packages
[ann@localhost ourniche]$ ls -l Packages/smf_patch*
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 4251 Jul 27  2014 Packages/smf_patch_1.1.19_2.0.6.tar.gz
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 1535 Jan  4  2012 Packages/smf_patch_2.0.1.tar.gz
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 2371 Jan  4  2012 Packages/smf_patch_2.0.2.tar.gz
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 2931 Oct  3  2013 Packages/smf_patch_2.0.3.tar.gz
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 2890 Oct  3  2013 Packages/smf_patch_2.0.4.tar.gz
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 1340 Oct  3  2013 Packages/smf_patch_2.0.5.tar.gz
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 9372 Jul 27  2014 Packages/smf_patch_2.0.7.tar.gz
-rw-rw-rw-. 1 ann ann 6709 Jul 27  2014 Packages/smf_patch_2.0.8.zip
$

The directory and the other patch files were owned by the user's account, ann. But the forum software was running under the apache account, as I could see by puttting a whoami.php file in a directory for the site. I.e., a .php file containing <?php system("id -a"); ?>. When I viewed whoami.php , I saw the following:

uid=48(apache) gid=48(apache) groups=48(apache) context=system_u:system_r:httpd_t:s0

While logged into the root account on the server, I checkd to see if there were any files owned by apache underneath the user's forum directory with the command find /home/ann/public_html/forum -group apache where /home/ann/public_html/forum was the location for the SMF forum's files. The files that were listed with a group of apache were those in the cache directory. I then checked the permissions on the cache directory and saw that the owner had read, write, and execute permissions while the group was listed as apache; the group also had read, write, and execute permissions.

# ls -ld /home/ann/public_html/forum/cache
drwxrwxr-x. 2 ann apache 12288 Feb 14 17:43 /home/ann/public_html/forum/cache

To resolve the problem with the upgrade, I changed the group on all files and directories within the user's forum directory to apache with chgrp --recursive apache /home/ann/public_html/forum/*.

[root@localhost forum]# chgrp --recursive apache /home/ann/public_html/forum/*
[root@localhost forum]#

When I afterwards attempted to upload the patch file again the upload succeeded.

Package uploaded successfully

The package has been uploaded successfully



[ Back ]

I clicked on "Install Mod"; all of the installation tests had a description of "Test successful", so I clicked on "Proceed" and then "Install Now". I then saw "The package was installed successfully. You should now be able to use whatever functionality it adds or changes; or not be able to use functionality it removes." However, the version of the forum software was still showing as "SMF 2.0.8" at the bottom of pages in the forum. While logged in as a forum administrator, I selected "Admin" then "Package Manager". I then saw the following:

Package uploaded successfully

A few security vulnerabilities and bugs in SMF 2.0.8 have been fixed. You can install this patch (click here to install) to fix your forum and update it to 2.0.9.

If you have any problems applying it, you can use the version posted on the downloads page - although, any modifications you have installed will need to be uninstalled. Please post on the forum if you need more help.

I clickd on the link to install the patch and then saw the "Package downloaded successfully" message with "The package has been uploaded successfully" again. I clicked on "Install Mod" and then at the next screen, "Install Now". Afterwards I saw "SMF 2.0.9" displayed at the bottom of forum pages. And when I clicked on "Admin" and selected "Package Manager", I saw the following for "Latest Packages":

Latest Packages

A few bugs in SMF 2.0.9 have been fixed. You can install this patch (click here to install) to fix your forum and update it to 2.0.10.

If you have any problems applying it, you can use the version posted on the downloads page - although, any modifications you have installed will need to be uninstalled. Please post on the forum if you need more help.

I clicked on the link provided to install the patch to update the forum to 2.0.10. The update was successful and I saw "The package was installed successfully. You should now be able to use whatever functionality it adds or changes; or not be able to use functionality it removes." I was then able to go through the same procedure to update the forum to the latest version 2.0.11 as I had followed to update it to 2.0.10.

 

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Created: Sunday February 15, 2016