Failed to connect to PC:21 - WordPress & XAMPP

Question

I've searched the XAMPP and Apache sites and can't seem to find anyway with the same problem that I'm having which includes an answer that'll work for my system.

I'm using a Macbook and have installed XAMPP so I can have a local environment for WordPress development. Problem is, is that when I try to do anything like updates, WordPress is asking for FTP details. Something I've never even seen before until now.

So I enter the host, username and password. It seems to be correct but says the following "Failed to connect to FTP Server My Mac:21".

Does anyone know how to fix this? I'm assuming port 21 is blocked or something? But I have no idea how to go about fixing it. Thanks.

Answer 1

Generally speaking, on a local development environment I wouldn't rely on FTP as an update solution. Fortunately your issue isn't specific to XAMPP or Apache, but rather a question of server permissions in general.

This is good news because it means the following WordPress documentation for Automatic Updates may contain some useful information for you.

I don't like to run an FTP Server from my local machine for reasons of security and resource allocation. That means I usually end up downloading WP, theme and plugin updates manually. This process works well for me since my code is typically under version control.

The other condition the docs mention is that if you set your file permissions correctly so that the working folder is OWNED and WRITABLE by the apache user the update may be successful without FTP access.

Hope this helps.