Upgrade Fails Step 3

[elbmw]

Hi all,
Hope everyone is well and healthy.

I am upgrading from 2.2.5 to 2.2.14 and it keeps failing the tests at step 3.

The error is:
Ensure that temporary directories are empty or do not exist
The CMSMS Temporary directories (tmp/cache and tmp/templates_c) exist, and are not empty. Please remove or empty them

I have taken the following steps to overcome this issue but nothing has worked so far.

1. Login to Admin back end and Clear Cache (Site Admin>System Maintenance>Cache and Content)
2. Login to FTP server and manually clear all contents from the files in the above mentioned directories.
3. Deleted the directories in tmp/ - this caused errors on the website. Copied directories back to server from a local copy.
4. Changed Mod of directories under tmp/ to 777

I retried the installation from the beginning at every step taken in my troubleshooting but cant get past that.

In the meantime I have also tried repairing and optimizing the database as well as the updating the hierarchy and routes to no avail.

I could do with some pointing in the right direction on this, if anyone has any ideas?

Regards
elbmw

[DIGI3]

I don't think I've seen that one before. I'm betting it's a bit of a red herring - something else is probably going on related to writing or temp file storage.

Here's a few things to try, in rough order of importance:
-make 100% sure mod_security isn't running (check with your host if needed)
-make sure no paths or urls are set in config.php
-check or disable htaccess
-try a different php version
-try an interim upgrade first - 2.2.6 (normally not needed, but if this works then 2.2.15 doesn't, keep going with the interims until it fails or finishes)

I don't know if debug mode in the upgrader would give any more info, but can't hurt to try.

[elbmw]

Thanks DIGI3. I'll give those suggestions a try and revert.
Regards
elbmw