Help! All apps in /bin giving error: "cannot execute binary"

[6tr6tr]

I have no idea what happened but here's the situation:

1. If I execute any app that is installed in the root (bin or whatever), such as "tar" or "ls" or "su" it says:

bash: /home/MyUserName/bin/ls: cannot execute binary file
or
bash: /home/MyUserName/bin/tar: cannot execute binary file
or
bash: /home/MyUserName/bin/su: cannot execute binary file

NOTE: the above happens when i just type "tar" at the command line or "ls" with no path.

2. If I execute the app directly (such as "/bin/tar") it works!

What could have happened? How do i fix this?


NOTE: If I do "echo $PATH", I see /bin in there!

[mikesd]

NOTE: If I do "echo $PATH", I see /bin in there!

can you post the output of your $PATH please? I know you said it's in there, but could you post it any way please. Could be a typo somewhere.

[coopstah13]

what is contents of this directory? /home/MyUserName/bin/

Probably that directory is first on the path, and if those commands exist in there, they will be used, rather than the ones that are in /bin.

[mikesd]

what is contents of this directory? /home/MyUserName/bin/

Probably that directory is first on the path, and if those commands exist in there, they will be used, rather than the ones that are in /bin.

Then they would still run and it would be permission errors on the directory listing. If it's in his ~ dir, he shouldn't be having a problem running anything in ~/bin

[Lakshmipathi]

May be his admin/friend play this trick on him.Creating a "bin" directory on his ~
and placing binaries with root permission - Just my guess.


Post output of following commands !!

echo $PATH
ls -l /home/MyUserName/bin/