SSH Can't delete file that ls says exists

Question

I've got a file that I cannot remove via SSH.

If I run an ls command on the directory, it clearly exists, but if it try to run an rm on the file it says:

cannot remove 'database.sql': No such file or directory

If I check the permissions on both the file and folder, it is 777, so I should have access to delete it.

If I run lsattr, it tells me:

No such file or directory While reading flags on ./database.sql

Finally, if I try to run rm . it again tells me:

rm: cannot remove 'database.sql': No such file or directory

Somehow it both knows that file is there (many commands "see" it), and can't remove it.

all-in-one-wp-migration/storage/sgmq5lpwyiio>ls -l
total 2327360
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody nogroup 2383152307 Jun  3 05:56 database.sql

all-in-one-wp-migration/storage/sgmq5lpwyiio>rm database.sql
rm: cannot remove 'database.sql': No such file or directory

all-in-one-wp-migration/storage/sgmq5lpwyiio>lsattr
lsattr: No such file or directory While reading flags on ./database.sql

all-in-one-wp-migration/storage/sgmq5lpwyiio>rm *.*
rm: cannot remove 'database.sql': No such file or directory

all-in-one-wp-migration/storage/sgmq5lpwyiio> 

Answer 1

The reason could be that the file owner and group is set to "nobody" and "nogroup". The "nobody" user and "nogroup" user group have the least possible privileges on the system. But even then you should be able to delete the file.

Do you have write permission to the directory that the file is in? Deleting a file may require write permissions in the directory as well, since you are removing something from a directory. Did you try editing the file? The directory may not have write access for you but, the file may have write access.

It could be file or system corruption as stated in the comments above, or it could be that a service might be running and is using that file.

Try to do chown and chgrp to make you as the owner, and the owning group to a group that you are in.

Answer 2

I have run into similar problems when there is an unintended unnoticed space or tab character somewhere in the file name that is being printed during a listing done using some sort of wild-card character. In some shells, if you type a tab after the file name on a command line, it will fill in characters at the end that you might not be seeing. You might be able to check by using a character count with wc -c on the file name, being aware of the unprinted \n character that is always counted.