Rclone cannot read local directory

I cannot post all the information asked for, because I am only allowed two links.

Problem: I am getting this erro:
error reading source root directory: directory not found

But the directory is there, and readable.

$ rclone version
rclone v1.69.0

  • os/version: redhat 8.10 (64 bit)
  • os/kernel: 4.18.0-553.el8_10.x86_64 (x86_64)
  • os/type: linux
  • os/arch: amd64
  • go/version: go1.23.4
  • go/linking: static
  • go/tags: snap

The cloud storage system is: ftp.byethost24.com

The command I was trying to run: rclone sync

$ rclone sync --interactive /var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki/ byethost:/htdocs/data/pages/wiki/

$ rclone config redacted
[box]
type = box
token = XXX

[byethost]
type = ftp
host = XXX
user = XXX
pass = XXX

$ rclone sync --interactive -vv /var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki/ byethost:/htdocs/data/pages/wiki/
2025/02/01 11:26:52 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.69.0" starting with parameters ["/snap/rclone/525/bin/rclone" "sync" "--interactive" "-vv" "/var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki/" "byethost:/htdocs/data/pages/wiki/"]
2025/02/01 11:26:52 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "/var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki/"
2025/02/01 11:26:52 DEBUG : Using config file from "/home/walter/snap/rclone/525/.config/rclone/rclone.conf"
2025/02/01 11:26:52 DEBUG : fs cache: renaming cache item "/var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki/" to be canonical "/var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki"
2025/02/01 11:26:52 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "byethost:/htdocs/data/pages/wiki/"

welcome to the forum,

that debug log does not show any errors??
need to post a full, complete debug that shows the error, ok?

to keep the log small, rclone copy just one file, something like

rclone copy /var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/pages/wiki/file.ext byethost:/htdocs/data/pages/wiki/ -vv --retries=1 --dry-run

Your rclone has limited access to local directories as it looks like you are using snap installation. This type of setup restrictions are clearly documented in docs.

This is not rclone problem. You have to either configure snap permissions or install rclone using other way, e.g. by running installation script or downloading it directly from rclone website.

Uninstalled rclone, reinstalled without snap, re-configured; and it seems to work. Thank you, and I will avoid using snap in the future.

Snap installations have their purpose and sometimes make perfect sense but for realitevely low level utility tools like rclone it is very bad choice IMO.