ls succeds but not ls -a

[gudgeforums]

@hcvv

Maybe before going as far as Confuseling suggests, you could first become root in the terminal by

su -

and the root password. And then do the

ls -d /home/user/
ls /home/user/
ls -a /home/user/

See if there are strange things there. When in doubt post the output here.

Edit: and yes, is your /home on a seperate partition as Confuselings’ method suggest?

My /home is not on separate partition.
There is a directory called .gvfs which has been created inside the my home directory. ls as root gives the error message that ls command cannot access .gvfs : Permission denied. I am not able to delete the file even as root(also as normal user). Also i am not able to change permissions or change ownership of the file.