Can't save new file even though I definitely have write permissions

I'm trying to save a .mat file in the following manner:

save('/path/to/file/file.mat','var1','var2');

I'm getting the "Cannot save /path/to/file/file.mat: Permission denied" that you typically get when the user running Matlab does not have permissions to write to the directory specified.

The problem is I ABSOLUTELY have write permissions to /path/to/file.

The output to

 ls -l '/path/to/'

shows the 'file' directory as drwxrwxr-x, and belongs to group "Developers", which I am a part of.

Further proof that I have write permissions: If I cd /path/to/file/ and then create a file named 'file.mat' using vim, and THEN invoke Matlab's save as described above, it WORKS!. If I then remove that file using a terminal and try to save from Matlab again, it FAILS!

Why might I not be able to create a new file from Matlab?

The only nuance I can think of is /path/to/file is an NFS mount on RHEL7

[Walter Roberson]

I no longer recall... if /path/to/file is an NFS mount point, then does ls -l reflect the permissions of the underlying mount point, or does it reflect the permissions of the mounted filesystem ?

[Daniel Klisiewicz]

given that I can can change the permissions of /path/to/file on the mounted location and have it reflect in the ls -l output, I'm led to believe that it reflects the underlying mount point and not the filesystem itself.

This is a good point to consider, although I'm not sure if it explains why I can create a file from a terminal at the mount point but not from an instance of matlab at the same location?

Answer 1

[Daniel Klisiewicz]

It turns out that the Matlab session was launched prior to myself being added to the 'Developer' group. A log out, log in, and relaunch of Matlab fixed the issue.

Answer 2

[Sulaymon Eshkabilov]

Check the permission:

% Specify the path you want to check
folderPath = '/path/to/file/file.mat';
% Get file attributes
attributes = fileattrib(folderPath);
% Check if you have the write permission in the folder
if attributes==1
    disp('Write permission is available for you! :)');
else
    disp('Write permission is NOT available for you! :(');
end

[Daniel Klisiewicz]

The output of fileattrib is that I should have write permissions.