symfony2 : failed to write cache directory - symfony

Question

I have had to use the
app/console cache:clear command
to solve a problem when generating an entity.
I am now unable to load my homepage on :
http://localhost/projet_etienne/web/app_dev.php
it says :
RuntimeException: Failed to write cache file "/var/www/projet_etienne/app/cache/dev/classes.php".
I don't understand much about this cache business!
In my app/cache folder, I got a dev, a dev_new, a dev_old folder. Is that normal?
the
app/console cache:clear
generates by the way a :
[ErrorException]
Warning: rename(/var/www/projet_etienne/app/cache/dev,/var/www/projet_etien
ne/app/cache/dev_old): Directory not empty in /var/www/projet_etienne/vendo
r/symfony/symfony/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/Command/CacheClearComm
and.php line 77
please help!

Answer 1

For a GOOD and definite solution see the Setting up Permissions section in Installing and Configuring Symfony section :
Setting up Permissions
One common issue when installing Symfony is that the app/cache and
app/logs directories must be writable both by the web server and the
command line user. On a UNIX system, if your web server user is
different from your command line user, you can try one of the
following solutions.
Use the same user for the CLI and the web server
In development environments, it is a common practice to use the same
UNIX user for the CLI and the web server because it avoids any of
these permissions issues when setting up new projects. This can be
done by editing your web server configuration (e.g. commonly
httpd.conf or apache2.conf for Apache) and setting its user to be the
same as your CLI user (e.g. for Apache, update the User and Group
values).
Using ACL on a system that supports chmod +a
Many systems allow you to use the chmod +a command. Try this first,
and if you get an error - try the next method. This uses a command to
try to determine your web server user and set it as HTTPDUSER:
$ rm -rf app/cache/*
$ rm -rf app/logs/*
$ HTTPDUSER=`ps aux | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\ -f1`
$ sudo chmod +a "$HTTPDUSER allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs
$ sudo chmod +a "`whoami` allow delete,write,append,file_inherit,directory_inherit" app/cache app/logs
Using ACL on a system that does not support chmod +a
Some systems don't support chmod +a, but do support another utility
called setfacl. You may need to enable ACL support on your partition
and install setfacl before using it (as is the case with Ubuntu). This
uses a command to try to determine your web server user and set it as
HTTPDUSER:
$ HTTPDUSER=`ps aux | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\ -f1`
$ sudo setfacl -R -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX app/cache app/logs
$ sudo setfacl -dR -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX app/cache app/logs
For Symfony 3 it would be:
$ HTTPDUSER=`ps aux | grep -E '[a]pache|[h]ttpd|[_]www|[w]ww-data|[n]ginx' | grep -v root | head -1 | cut -d\ -f1`
$ sudo setfacl -R -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX var/cache var/logs
$ sudo setfacl -dR -m u:"$HTTPDUSER":rwX -m u:`whoami`:rwX var/cache var/logs
If this
doesn't work, try adding -n option.
Without using ACL
If none of the previous methods work for you, change the umask so that
the cache and log directories will be group-writable or world-writable
(depending if the web server user and the command line user are in the
same group or not). To achieve this, put the following line at the
beginning of the app/console, web/app.php and web/app_dev.php files:
umask(0002); // This will let the permissions be 0775
// or
umask(0000); // This will let the permissions be 0777
Note that using the ACL is recommended when you have access to them on your server
because changing the umask is not thread-safe.
http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#checking-symfony-application-configuration-and-setup
source :
Failed to write cache file "/var/www/myapp/app/cache/dev/classes.php" when clearing the cache

Answer 2

Most likely it means that the directory and/or sub-directories are not writable. Many forget about sub-directories.
Symfony 2
chmod -R 777 app/cache app/logs
Symfony 3 directory structure
chmod -R 777 var/cache var/logs
Additional Resources
Permissions solution by Symfony (mentioned previously).
Permissions solution by KPN University - additionally includes an screen-cast on installation.
Note: If you're using Symfony 3 directory structure, substitute app/cache and app/logs with var/cache and var/logs.

Answer 3

If the folder is already writable so thats not the problem.
You can also just navigate to /www/projet_etienne/app/cache/ and manualy remove the folders in there (dev, dev_new, dev_old).
Make sure to SAVE a copy of those folder somewhere to put back if this doesn't fix the problem
I know this is not the way it should be done but it worked for me a couple of times now.

Answer 4

You probably aborted a clearcache halfway and now you already have an app/cache/dev_old.
Try this (in the root of your project, assuming you're on a Unixy environment like OS X or Linux):
rm -rf app/cache/dev*

Answer 5

Maybe you forgot to change the permissions of app/cache app/log
I'm using Ubuntu so
sudo chmod -R 777 app/cache
sudo chmod -R 777 app/logs
sudo setfacl -dR -m u::rwX app/cache app/logs
Hope it helps..

Answer 6

I move the whole directory from my Windows installation to a unix production server and I got the same error. To fix it, I just ran these two lines in unix and everything started to run fine
rm -rf app/cache/*
rm -rf app/logs/*

Answer 7

i executed:
ps aux | grep apache
and got something like that:
root 28147 0.0 5.4 326336 27024 ? Ss 20:06 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28150 0.0 1.3 326368 6852 ? S 20:06 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28151 0.0 4.4 329016 22124 ? S 20:06 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28152 0.1 6.0 331252 30092 ? S 20:06 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28153 0.0 1.3 326368 6852 ? S 20:06 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28154 0.0 1.3 326368 6852 ? S 20:06 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data 28157 0.0 1.3 326368 6852 ? S 20:06 0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
user 28297 0.0 0.1 15736 924 pts/4 S+ 20:12 0:00 grep --color=auto apache
so my user with no access turned out to be www-data thus i executed commands:
sudo chown -R www-data app/cache
sudo chown -R www-data app/logs
and it solved access errors.
Never-ever use unsecure 777 for solving specific access probles:
sudo chmod -R 777 app/cache
sudo chmod -R 777 app/logs

Answer 8

if symfony version less than 2.8
sudo chmod -R 777 app/cache/*
if symfony version great than or equal 3.0
sudo chmod -R 777 var/cache/*

Answer 9

If you face this error when you start Symfony project with docker (my Symfony version 5.1). Or errors like these:
Uncaught Exception: Failed to write file "/var/www/html/mysite.com.local/var/cache/dev/App_KernelDevDebugContainer.xml"" while reading upstream
Uncaught Warning: file_put_contents(/var/www/html/mysite.com.local/var/cache/dev/App_KernelDevDebugContainerDeprecations.log): failed to open stream: Permission denied" while reading upstream
Fix below helped me.
In Dockerfile for nginx container add line:
RUN usermod -u 1000 www-data
In Dockerfile for php-fpm container add line:
RUN usermod -u 1000 www-data
Then remove everything in directories "/var/cache", "/var/log" and rebuild docker's containers.

Answer 10

Just use this acl cmd, next time the files inside var are created it will have the r/w/x permission for www-data user.
cd var
rm -rf *
cd ..
setfacl -d -m u:www-data:rwx var
Cmd explanation:
setfacl -> Set acl command
-d -> default behavior
-m -> modify
u:www-data: -> for user
rwx -> adding permissions
var -> on the folder