Files Not Copying Properly Without Manual Directory Setup

For some reason the files won't copy into directories that the module is setting up.

I had to manually create a [type] directory and chmod 777, and only then did it work.

Seems like this should work without me having to do this for each time I create a new directory, but I'm new to Drupal, so maybe I'm doing something wrong.

The module creates the directories, but it seems like at least on my server it won't write to them unless I manually create them via FTP or terminal and set them to 777.

I thought I might be able to fix this by changing the permissions settings in includes/file.inc, but while it did create the directory with 777 permissions it wouldn't write the file to it. Very odd to say the least.

I've looked around, but can't seem to find anything on this. Please forgive me if this has already been addressed. For now I've just manually created all the node types. Any thoughts?