Asset Uploading via Assets Field Broken, please help *Update: Installed MAMP Pro, reinstalled Craft, asset upload is working now. Not exactly a fix, but seemed like the simplest route of action due to my unfamiliarity with PHP. Thanks to those who responded to my question.

I'm a newcomer to web development and Craft CMS. I've downloaded and installed Craft CMS locally and I'm following along with an "Up and Running With Craft CMS" tutorial to get my bearings.

I am unable to upload assets via an asset field. The upload box appears and after selecting a file to upload the progress bar fills and freezes and the loading wheel spins on forever. Due to this I can't upload any images and therefore can't create my site properly. Please help!
Checking the logs is of course recommended:

craft/storage/runtime/logs


However, I have personally found that failed uploads are related to "write" issues where either the directory permissions are invalid or the actual upload path doesn't exist (aka invalid).

One simple way to potentially obtain more information is to look at the actual HTTP response for the "upload file" AJAX request. I often do this via Chrome's Developer Tools' Network tab.


Open Chrome Developer Tools
Click the "Network" tab.
Perform the file upload.
Click on the "uploadFile" request that was generated
Click the "Response" tab to view the completed response (which will appear once the response is returned).