File copy failed: no directory configured, or it could not be accessed.

Make sure that your filemanager private dir is a subdir of your drupal files dir.

I ran across the IDENTICAL issue on 4.7b4 after it had been working for several days. After playing around with my site WHILE NOT LOGGED ON I noticed that Drupal thought it was a new installation. Log on, and everything (except file uploads) works.

The problem in my case turned out to be the taxonomy_access module. Try disabling it (first disable it in the settings menu before disabling the module or it may not correct the issue).

This worked for me. I'm not sure what is going wrong with the TA module; but it was probably some misconfiguration on my part.

I'm getting the exact same error. I removed Acidfree after checking the install, settings etc. What is bothering is that it used to work perfectly. After removing Acidfree I installed it again, went thrue the setup but no luck. Still can't upload foto's.
I will scratch around some more.

I'm seeing the same error if the private subdir is not under the drupal files subdir. However, if I put the private subdir under the drupal files sbrdir, aren't I defeating the whole purpose of private files (which is what I want)? I don't want the images accessable via http://....

Thanks,
Kory

no, putting the private dir under the drupal dir doesn't defeat the purpose...

You still have to protect it though -- use something like this in your apache config or .htaccess

# deny stuff from the private filemanager filestore

Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All