Question: I am trying to run the `php composer.phar self-update` command for my composer.phar file for my laravel project. 

When I run this I get the following error:

```
Composer update failed: the "/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/*******/**********/composer.phar" file could not be written

```

I have looked at the permissions, and I do have read and write access for composer.phar on this machine.

Any ideas what could be going on?

Answer: 
Try to apply permissions not to the `composer.phar` but to the entire directory. Sometimes you have permission for a file (like `chmod 777 ./dir/file.ext`), but not for the directory. In that case, you may try to `chmod 777 -R ./dir` and that will give you total access to the directory.

P.S.: `777` is just an example, you may put any permissions you may think you need. But, at least for a test, I strongly recommend you to try that first. If won't work we will know that permission wasn't the issue **at all**.
Try this instead by using "super user do", then composer upgrade command.
This worked for me:

`sudo composer self-update`

enoy!!