No such file or directory

1 You are not where you think you are

Relative paths resolve from the current directory. This is by far the most common cause, especially in scripts and cron jobs, which start in a different directory than your interactive shell.

$ pwd && ls

$ cd /the/right/place    # or use an absolute path

2 A typo, or the wrong capitalisation

Linux filesystems are case sensitive: Documents and documents are different directories. People coming from Windows or macOS hit this constantly.

$ ls -la | grep -i thename

$ cat Notes.txt    # match the real capitalisation exactly

Use Tab completion instead of typing names: it cannot get the case wrong.

3 A parent directory does not exist

Writing to logs/app/today.log fails if logs/app was never created. The error points at the whole path, not at the missing part.

$ ls -la logs/

$ mkdir -p logs/app

4 A broken symbolic link

The link exists but what it points at is gone or moved. ls shows the name, opening it fails — a confusing combination the first time you meet it.

$ ls -la thelink && readlink -f thelink

$ ln -sfn /the/correct/target thelink

5 The script has Windows line endings

A file edited on Windows ends its lines with CR+LF. The shebang line then reads as "/bin/bash\r", which does not exist — and the error names a path that looks perfectly correct.

$ file script.sh && head -1 script.sh | cat -A

$ sed -i "s/\r$//" script.sh

If cat -A shows ^M at the end of lines, this is your cause. See also the dedicated page on "bad interpreter".

6 Unquoted spaces in the path

Without quotes, the shell splits on spaces and the command receives several arguments instead of one path.

$ ls -la

$ cat "My Documents/notes.txt"

7 The binary exists but a library it needs does not

A subtle case: running a program returns "No such file or directory" even though you can see the file. What is missing is its dynamic loader or a shared library.

$ file ./theprogram && ldd ./theprogram

$ sudo apt install the-missing-library