I experience this UX problem a lot with new Drupal / Backdrop users. When presented with a file field on a form, they click the upload button before selecting a file, expecting the upload button is step 1 of the process and not step 2.
I think it might help if the upload button were disabled (or invisible?) until the user had selected a file. Here is a Drupal project that does exactly that: https://www.drupal.org/sandbox/clivelinsell/1587560
Recent comments
Thanks, the /tmp folder was the problem. I moved it elsewhere and then the updated worked. Thanks again!
Update 1.35.1 appears to install but hasn't
Probably not the reason, but worth to do a quick check: Sometimes the update cache interferes, so if something's odd with updates - some module (or core) claims to have updated, but then...
Update 1.35.1 appears to install but hasn't
Nope, not touched any permissions!
Update 1.35.1 appears to install but hasn't