I was updating WordPress the other day. and afterward was unable to upload anything to the media library.

Here’s the Error:

Unable to create directory uploads/2023/01. Is its parent directory writable by the server?

I had attempted to edit permissions on the uploads folder and subfolders, which ended up not being the issue.

I found this solution, which worked out great.

Edit your wp-config.php, adding the following line.

define( 'UPLOADS', 'wp-content/uploads' );

before these lines:

/** WordPress absolute path to the WordPress directory. */
if ( !defined('ABSPATH') )
    define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__) . '/');

/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');

I had to upgrade my PHP version recently because it was sunsetting. I also upgraded WordPress at the same time. Doing so, caused the Crayon Syntax Highlighter plugin to fail. I used the fix I found here.
https://crunchify.com/fix-for-crayon-syntax-highlighter-wordpress-plugin-and-php-7-3-fatal-error/

Update on this. Since I had to upgrade PHP I’ve switched to the Enlighter plug-in