Package manager issue

[truecrimson]

The background
10/17 I applied the last patch to my 1.x.x forum.  That destroyed it.  The index.phph file was missing and would not upload.  While working on that issue I upgraded to 2.0.9, and then had to get my host to allow Subs-Post.php in mod_security.  That took over a week. 

The problem
Today it finally appears to be working but I began attempting to reinstall some mods and get this;

Some of the files the package manager needs to modify are not writable. This needs to be changed by logging into FTP and using it to chmod or create the files and folders. Your FTP information may be temporarily cached for proper operation of the package manager. Note you can also do this manually using an FTP client - to view a list of the affected files please click here.
The following files need to made writable to continue installation:
/
/

SMF doesn't appear to be able to connect to my hosts server via FTP.  I tried changing the permissions on the forum directory and several others to 777 temporarily and it didn't help.

I added a "temp" directory to the "packages" directory (the only suggestion I found through searching) and it did not solve the problem.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[kat]

As well as screwing mod_security, hosts often don't give you full CHOWN ownership of your files.

I suspect this is the case, here, I'm afraid.