One of the main culprits for this issue is the file permissions for your scripts which might be incorrectly set up and prevent the server from accessing the files. These include the 666 and the 777 permissions, which you will need to change to either 644 or 755 to fix the problem.

Use the FTP editor to explore the functional WordPress sites. Check whether all files are set with the 644 permission and if the directories have the 755 permission.

The main reason for the “an error occurred while processing this directive” are faulty file permissions. Please note that this can be a very long fix, often taking hours and you will need FileZilla or other similar software.

First, you need to use a PHP script that will automatically set permissions for every directory on your website. This is the code to use.

<?
header('Content-Type: text/plain');
/*
* Recursively changes permissions of files and directories within $dir and all subdirectories.
* This script by XDude: http://www.xdude.com/
* Original script borrowed from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9262622/set-permissions-for-all-files-and-folders-recursively
*/
function chmod_r($dir)
{
$dp = opendir($dir);
while($file = readdir($dp))
{
if (($file == ".") || ($file == "..")) continue;
$path = $dir . "/" . $file;
$is_dir = is_dir($path);
set_perms($path, $is_dir);
if($is_dir) chmod_r($path);
}
closedir($dp);
}
function set_perms($file, $is_dir)
{
$perm = substr(sprintf("%o", fileperms($file)), -4);
$dirPermissions = "0755";
$filePermissions = "0644";
if($is_dir&& $perm != $dirPermissions)
{
echo("Dir: " . $file . "n");
chmod($file, octdec($dirPermissions));
}
else if(!$is_dir&& $perm != $filePermissions)
{
echo("File: " . $file . "n");
chmod($file, octdec($filePermissions));
}
flush();
}
chmod_r(dirname(__FILE__));
?>

Now you can proceed to fix the “an error occurred while processing this directive” issue.

• Backup all your files first.
• Download this PHP script, which will automatically set the right permissions for all your files and directives (644 and 755).
• You can freely edit the script and add other permissions of your liking.
• Download the file, unzip it, and upload it to the root folder of your site.
• Go to yourdomain.com/php_permissions_755_644.php

After waiting for a few seconds, you will be able to see a list of all files and directories – which means that the script works and that the permissions are now set.