How to repair broken file permissions safely

Broken permissions can make sites inaccessible, prevent uploads, or expose security risks. The goal is to restore sane defaults without applying unsafe wide-open permissions.

Common symptoms

• PHP scripts return 500 or 403 errors
• Uploads or cache folders are not writable
• Permissions were changed recursively and the site stopped working

Troubleshooting steps

1. Set standard folders to 755 and standard files to 644 unless the vendor requires otherwise.
2. Do not use 777 broadly. Instead, identify only the directories that need write access, such as cache, sessions, or uploads.
3. If an application includes a command or installer to repair permissions, use the vendor-documented method first.
4. After changing permissions, test frontend pages, admin login, uploads, and scheduled tasks.
5. If ownership is incorrect after a migration, support assistance may be required because ownership cannot always be corrected from cPanel.

Additional notes

• Permissions alone do not fix every write error; file ownership can also be involved.
• Applying recursive changes to the whole account can break system-generated files and hidden configuration files.

When to contact support

Contact support if permissions look correct but the application still reports files are not writable.