File with unreadable (?) permissions, mucks up rsync

[Roger Heflin]

reikred at gmail.com wrote:
> I have a file in /home/<user>/.emacs.d/auto-save-list which has 
> unreadable (?) permissions,
> and also cannot be deleted, at least not by conventional means
> 
> -????????? ? ?    ?       ?            ? .saves-2879-homepc.localdomain~
> 
> Any thoughts on how to get rid of this file? It is mucking up my rsync 
> jobs, rsync
> reports that the file has disappeared and that there is an I/O error.
> 
> 

Generally something with permissions/size/date like that means that the 
directory entry is totally screwed up, and often that means that rm won't work.

Even fsck may not be able to get rid of it.

You may be able to move it someplace that rsync does not look (on the same 
partition), and that may be your only option if it does let you move it.

                            Roger