Vim-Plug: Can't install plugins. Invalid plug directory

Question

I'm new to vim. The problem happens when I type :PlugInstall I get:

[vim-plug] Invalid plug directory: /Users/joqsan/.vim/plugged. Try to call plug#begin with a valid directory

---

This is how I installed vim-plug:

$ mkdir -p ~/.vim/autoload/ $ cd ~/.vim/autoload/
$ curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/junegunn/vim-plug/master/plug.vim

In .vimrc I have:

set number

if filereadable(expand("~/.vimrc.plug"))
source ~/.vimrc.plug
endif

In ~/.vimrc.plug:

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
Plug 'tpope/vim-fugitive'
call plug#end()

But when I reload vim and type :PlugInstall, I get:

[vim-plug] Invalid plug directory: /Users/joqsan/.vim/plugged. Try to call plug#begin with a valid directory

If I type :scriptnames I get this:

1: /usr/share/vim/vimrc
2: ~/.vimrc
3: ~/.vimrc.plug
4: ~/.vim/autoload/plug.vim
5: /usr/share/vim/vim80/filetype.vim
6: /usr/share/vim/vim80/ftplugin.vim
7: /usr/share/vim/vim80/indent.vim
8: /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/syntax.vim
9: /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/synload.vim
10: /usr/share/vim/vim80/syntax/syncolor.vim
11: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/getscriptPlugin.vim
12: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/gzip.vim
13: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/logiPat.vim
14: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/manpager.vim
15: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/matchparen.vim
16: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/netrwPlugin.vim
17: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/rrhelper.vim
18: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/spellfile.vim
19: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/tarPlugin.vim
20: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/tohtml.vim
21: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/vimballPlugin.vim
22: /usr/share/vim/vim80/plugin/zipPlugin.vim

Since I don't see ~/.vim/plugged, I try to create the directory:

$ mkdir ~/.vim/plugged

But I get:

net120:~ joqsan$ mkdir ~/.vim/plugged
mkdir: /Users/joqsan/.vim/plugged: File exists
net120:~ joqsan$ 

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Edit 1: Directory structure of ~/.vim and ~/.vim/autoload

net120:~ joqsan$ ls -la ~/.vim/autoload
total 256
drwxr-x---  3 root  staff     96 Mar 30 12:33 .
drwxr-x---  4 root  staff    128 Mar 30 13:14 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root  staff  74434 Mar 30 13:45 plug.vim

Joqsans-MacBook-Air:~ joqsan$ ls -al ~/.vim
total 0
drwxr-x---   4 root    staff   128 Mar 30 13:14 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 66 joqsan  staff  2112 Mar 30 17:38 ..
drwxr-x---   3 root    staff    96 Mar 30 12:33 autoload
-rw-r--r--   1 root    staff     0 Mar 30 13:14 plugged`

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Edit 2:

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Edit 3:

On OS X, the primary group is always staff, so I think this is ok. I didn't create the directory ~/.vim. I installed vim with homebrew (I mean, I did nothing manually).

After doing what you recommended I got this:

Joqsans-MacBook-Air:~ joqsan$ sudo chown joqsan:staff ~/.vim
Joqsans-MacBook-Air:~ joqsan$ ls -al ~/.vim
total 0
drwxr-x---   4 joqsan  staff   128 Mar 30 23:08 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 67 joqsan  staff  2144 Mar 31 04:28 ..
drwxr-x---   3 root    staff    96 Mar 30 12:33 autoload
drwxr-xr-x   2 root    staff    64 Mar 30 23:08 plugged

With respect to the previous prompt (in Edit 1 above) now the first two directories are owned by joqsan, but I still get the error when typing :PlugInstall. Maybe that is because autoload and plugged are still owned by root?

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Edit 4:

Joqsans-MacBook-Air:~ joqsan$ sudo chown -R joqsan: ~/.vim
Joqsans-MacBook-Air:~ joqsan$ ls -al ~/.vim
total 0
drwxr-x---   4 joqsan  staff   128 Mar 30 23:08 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 67 joqsan  staff  2144 Mar 31 13:11 ..
drwxr-x---   3 joqsan  staff    96 Mar 30 12:33 autoload
drwxr-xr-x   2 joqsan  staff    64 Mar 30 23:08 plugged

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

As posted in the comments:

You have a file where vim-plug wants to create a directory

Create a back up and get it out of the way:

mv ~/.vim/plugged ~/.vim/plugged.bak

Then try again.

Also make sure you own the directory:

sudo chown $USER: ~/.vim

The vim directory can become owned by root if you use sudo vim—the correct technique is to set the EDITORor VISUAL variable and invoke sudoedit.