directory permissions not right

[dwlamb]

I am having some strange problems with various sub-directories of my home directory. This is the output

$> ls -l Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/
ls: cannot access Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/PresentationBkgrounds: Permission denied
ls: cannot access Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/Calc: Permission denied
ls: cannot access Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/web: Permission denied
ls: cannot access Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/KeyboardShortcuts: Permission denied
ls: cannot access Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/Impress: Permission denied
ls: cannot access Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/KeyboardShortcuts.: Permission denied
ls: cannot access Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/Writer: Permission denied
total 0
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? Calc
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? Impress
-????????? ? ? ? ? ? KeyboardShortcuts
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? PresentationBkgrounds
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? web
d????????? ? ? ? ? ? Writer
Yet, if I perform the same with sudo, this is the result

$> sudo ls -l Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates/
total 28
drw-r--r-- 2 daniel daniel 4096 Dec 7 11:58 Calc
drw-r--r-- 2 daniel daniel 4096 Dec 7 11:58 Impress
-rw-r--r-- 1 daniel daniel 2088 Dec 7 11:58 KeyboardShortcuts
drw-r--r-- 2 daniel daniel 4096 Dec 7 11:58 PresentationBkgrounds
drw-r--r-- 2 daniel daniel 4096 Dec 7 11:58 web
drw-r--r-- 3 daniel daniel 4096 Dec 7 11:58 WriterUnfortunately, this is prevalent in a number of directories for my production.
How can I go about fixing this mess?

If I


sudo copy the sub-directories and their contents to a new directory
sudo change the owner to myself [danie:daniel]

I still end up with permission denied and the rows of question marks when I perform ls -l

[pkadeel]

This is because your folders do not have execute permission set
also post the output of
$> ls -l /Docs
If you do not get any permission error in that output then the following shall solve your problem


sudo chmod -Rv a+rwX,go-w /Docs/OpenOfficeTemplates

[dwlamb]

thanks for the input... In clearing the execute parameter for a recursive command intended for all files, it was not realised it would hit the directories as well, producing this problem