Upload directory with no prefix (://) was not found for file uploads

Question

I am not able to get file uploads of any type to work on my Drupal instance when I attempt to add media using the built in form. When I upload an image file, I get:

And looking at the log messages in Drupal I see:

The upload directory ://2022-05 for the file field field_media_image_private could not be created or is not accessible. A newly uploaded file could not be saved in this directory as a consequence, and the upload was canceled.

I do not understand where the path :// comes from. I would have expected it to be something like public:// or private:// but not just ://.

A few things I tried with no success (for test purposes):

• Setting relative instead of absolute paths for files and private folders in settings.php.
• Setting 777 permissions on the files and private folders.
• Disabling every module except core and rebuilding all caches.

What else could be the source of this issue? What else can I check?

Answer 1

In your question you said you made sure the private directory is relative and not absolute. The private files directory must be specified as absolute. Below is the documentation for file_private_path, from default.settings.php (emphasis, mine).

A local file system path where private files will be stored. This directory must be absolute, outside of the Drupal installation directory and not accessible over the web.