# Permission denied Error during SAm\_4km\_RA2T\_um\_surf\_ostia step

**URL:** <https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/t/permission-denied-error-during-sam-4km-ra2t-um-surf-ostia-step/2040>\
**Category:** Unified Model\
**Tags:** PUMA, ARCHER2, Ancillaries\
**Created:** [19 March 2026 16:04 UTC](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/t/permission-denied-error-during-sam-4km-ra2t-um-surf-ostia-step/2040 "2026-03-19T16:04:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![scottan32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@scottan32](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/u/scottan32)\
**Post date:** [19 March 2026 16:04 UTC](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/t/permission-denied-error-during-sam-4km-ra2t-um-surf-ostia-step/2040/1 "2026-03-19T16:04:54Z")

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I am running suite u-dx731 on ARCHER2, which is itself a copy of u-ds822, which runs fine on my colleagues’ setup.

When I run u-dx731, I get the following error during the SAm\_4km\_RA2T\_um\_surf\_ostia step of the workflow. This is the entirety of the job.err file:

```auto
The following have been reloaded with a version change:
  1) cce/16.0.1 => cce/15.0.0 2) cray-mpich/8.1.27 => cray-mpich/8.1.23

[FAIL] [Errno 13] Permission denied: './rose-app-run.confUXDj4n'
2026-03-19T14:38:40Z CRITICAL - failed/ERR

```

It seems to have a permission error when writing a temporary file. I assume there must be an incorrect setting somewhere in my configuration which is causing it to try and write to a directory I do not own, but I can’t work out even which directory it is trying to write to.

Any help or suggestions welcome.

Scott

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**Author:** ![AnnetteOsprey](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/annetteosprey/32/27_2.png) [@AnnetteOsprey](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/u/AnnetteOsprey)\
**Post date:** [20 March 2026 09:54 UTC](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/t/permission-denied-error-during-sam-4km-ra2t-um-surf-ostia-step/2040/2 "2026-03-20T09:54:15Z")

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Hi Scott,

Can you point to the log file where you see this error?

Thanks,

Annette

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**Author:** ![scottan32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@scottan32](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/u/scottan32)\
**Post date:** [20 March 2026 10:23 UTC](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/t/permission-denied-error-during-sam-4km-ra2t-um-surf-ostia-step/2040/3 "2026-03-20T10:23:30Z")

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Hi Annette,

Thank you for getting back so quickly.

You can find it here on ARCHER2:

/home/n02/n02/scottan/cylc-run/u-dx731/run1/log/job/20091009T0000Z/SAm\_4km\_RA2T\_um\_surf\_ostia/03

Many thanks,

Scott

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![scottan32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@scottan32](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/u/scottan32)\
**Post date:** [20 March 2026 15:24 UTC](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/t/permission-denied-error-during-sam-4km-ra2t-um-surf-ostia-step/2040/4 "2026-03-20T15:24:39Z")

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Hi Annette,

I’ve been able to identify what the issue was and get past this step.

The job script, generated from `/home/n02/n02/scottan/roses/u-dx731/suite-runtime/lam.rc` contained this line:

```bash
cd /work/n02/n02/lowe/ancils/original_run/u-cr358 && . ./ancil_versions

```

Which seems necessary because ancil\_versions uses pwd to work out the path to the ancils. I would have thought avoiding use of pwd in ancil\_versions would be cleaner code and avoid these kinds of errors.

Anyway, it doesn’t seem to leave that directory and I don’t have write access to it, so at some point it fails. I added the line:

```bash
cd ${CYLC_RUN_DIR}/${CYLC_WORKFLOW_ID}

```

afterwards which seems to have worked - it’s ended up making a copy of `rose-app-run.conf` in `/work/n02/n02/scottan/cylc-run/u-dx731/run1` which I hope is harmless.

This let me get past this error anyway, but let me know if you can think of a cleaner solution.

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**Author:** ![system](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/uploads/cms_support/original/1X/1fd2411499ffcbc299fe756cd5cdf26e44956558.png) [@system](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/u/system)\
**Post date:** [19 April 2026 15:25 UTC](https://cms-helpdesk.ncas.ac.uk/t/permission-denied-error-during-sam-4km-ra2t-um-surf-ostia-step/2040/5 "2026-04-19T15:25:06Z")

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