Composer fails to self-update

Question

When I try to run composer self-update, I get the error:

The file is corrupted (creating archive "/home/heytherejake/.composer/cache/composer-temp.phar" disabled by the php.ini setting phar.readonly).
Please re-run the self-update command to try again.

I have set phar.readonly set to Off (and my phpinfo reflects this), yet the error still occurs. Does anyone know what else might cause this?

Answer 1

The best solution is to remove composer and then reinstall it:

i. Find Composer:

which composer

ii. Then remove it as sudo (use the directory returned from above)

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/composer
sudo rm -rf ~/.composer/cache/

iii. Then install it using apt-get

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install curl php5-cli git
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php -- --install-dir=/usr/local/bin --filename=composer

iv. Then test if it's working

composer self-update

Answer 2

Composer not updating or working properly is usually due to one of two things. Bad permission and/or bad cache.

To Remove cache, use sudo rm -rf ~/.composer/cache/

To fix permission issue change composer.phar permission to 755:

which composer
sudo chmod 755 path/to/composer

as a last mean of fixing this issue, try to update with sudo sudo -H composer self-update