I got this error on upgrading to WordPress 2.8. The error message showed up in red after I upgraded the wp-dbmanager plugin. This is what it said…
Your backup folder MIGHT be visible to the public
To correct this issue, move the .htaccess file from wp-content/plugins/wp-dbmanager to /home/my-website-name/public_html/wp-content/backup-db
I found the sample htaccess.txt file in my wp-content/plugins/wp-dbmanager with the following content…
<Files ~ “.*\..*”>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>
I used Filezilla to ftp it onto my desktop and uploaded it to my wp-content/backup-db folder. I then renamed the htaccess.txt file to .htaccess
This should solve your problem. In my case however, WordPress was prompting me to put the .htaccess file in a non existant folder. The folder name was the the place where I had installed WordPress previously as I had a multi web hosting package and simplysimple.info was my secondary website and therefore installed in a sub folder. After it became my primary website, I transferred WordPress to my public_html directory. The solution was to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click DB Options under Database in the left pane. Under DB options, I found my old path listed in Path to Backup. Setting this to the current path resolved the problem. This is important as this is where the plugin will be looking for the .htaccess file -if it is pointing to a wrong/old/non-existant location, the plugin won’t be able to detect the file even if you have followed the steps and put the file in the right place. You might be safe, but the annoying error message will keep distracting you every time you login to wp-admin. The path might not always be ~/public_html/ so if in doubt ask your web hosting provider! This is a shortcoming of the plugin itself. Other plugins like XML sitemap generator auto detect the full path even after I shift my hosting, so I copy the new path from their settings and paste it into the Path to Backup in settings for the WP-DBmanager plugin.
Thanks to the WordPress forum for their post on sorting out the first part of the problem!
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