7.x-1.5 gives error The file permissions could not be set on public://

Hm, well sounds like your root "files" directory is not writable. I don't think this is a bug in FileField Sources, it sounds like a permissions problem on your server (as the error suggests). Try making your sites/default/files directory owned by the same user as your web server.

I'm having the same issue, and files directory and all subdirectories are a+rwx
I don't have any problem uploading a file directly, just with filefield sources

In my case this error was an unrelated symptom, but led me to the cause of my WSOD:
php-curl was not enabled on my server.

(fyi: `apt-get install php5-curl`)

Dunno if this will solve d_hall's issue or not, but either way the permissions message is not fatal and is probably not the root cause.

However, this leads me to an unrelated question: #1880210: Why not use system_retrieve_file instead of invoking curl directly?

...

This Module dont work.

When i use remote URL images i get ....

"The file permissions could not be set on public://"

I changed user and group from "files directory" to www-data - i installed cUrl (apt-get install php5-curl) .. now i have no error in Logfiles but i get only WSOD when i will make a testnode with remote URL images.

And now?

i get only WSOD when i will make a testnode with remote URL images.

If you're getting a WSOD, I'd suggest turning on the display_errors option in php.ini so that you get displayed an error instead of a white screen. PHP should give you an error that way, and once we know what the error is we'll be likely to solve it.

I was getting the similar error 'The file permissions could not be set on private://' and the file was not being uploaded. As with aaronbauman, I had to install curl which allowed the file to be uploaded but still gave the error. Setting ownership of the private files directory to www-data resolved the error.

Seems like there should be a hook_requirements to verify that curl exists, rather than erroring out.