I'm not an expert like the other guys, so I may be wrong. I had the
same problem last night. I fixed it by changing the chmod on that
directory to allow writing and reading. After I closed file, I
changed the chmod again.

fclose($out);
$out = "index.php";
chmod("$out", 0644);
if (!$out)
{
print("Could not change permissions");
exit;
}

If I'm wrong, sorry for leading down the garden path.

Lynne