If you are getting the “Unable to create directory” error when trying to upload media and have chmodded the uploads directory, this may help. I was having this issue and tried in vain to get this to upload a simple picture. I ended up getting it to work by going into the wp-config file and changing the uploads path to the default:
define( ‘UPLOADS’, ‘wp-content/’.’uploads’ );
Once I changed it to this default, it worked like a charm. I think this was caused by being on a shared hosting server and so the entire hosting path to a directory can change at any time.
“Unable to create directory /var/www/vhosts/xdomainx.com/httpdocs/wp-content/uploads/2014/09. Is its parent directory writable by the server?”