If you recently tried running Godaddy’s P3 WordPress plugin on your WordPress site or blog and received the error message “Cannot Read Profiles Directory,” there is a solution for you! The problem stems from two possible causes. There needs to BE a profiles directory and it needs to be writable by the program.
To get this working, you first need to create a wp-content/uploads/profiles folder. If you have ftp access you can do it that way. I’m not sure why P3 doesn’t do it itself, but sometimes you have to do it manually. Then once that folder is made, you have to make sure it has write permissions on it. I believe CHMOD 755 permissions should do the trick, otherwise 777 will have to be used. Make sure you only apply it to that one folder, otherwise you risk making your site vulnerable to attack.
Once that is complete, P3 should have no problem running the scan. It uses the Profiles folder to store the results of it’s scan, and so without the ability to write there the scan cannot run. Hopefully this article was able to help you! If you need additional help with your plugins, contact me at brian@brianjohnsondesign.com. Thanks!