Trouble using "ls" in root directory

[Techwhore]

My housemates have been repeatedly pulling the plug on my linux server and now i can't use the ls command in /. Everything else appears to be alright, but i can't think of why ls would stop working in the root directory. I've tried it from several accounts, including root.

Thanks in advance.

 

[n0cmonkey]

What happens?

 

[Abzstrak]

might you have . in your path and a script or the such in / that is called "ls" ?

 

[Techwhore]

I don't have a script, at least that i'm aware of... keep in mind this used to work.

What happens is it takes a long time, never yeilding anything... so i ctrl+c it.

I can access files in /, but if i didn't know there names, i would never be able to see them...

I do run vnc, so i'll try connecting remoted and using a GUI file manager to see if that helps.

EDIT:

Just ran file manager via VNC and it wouldn't read, got stuck at 3%... However, I connected via ssh just to try command line again and now it works... weird.

 

[Abzstrak]

maybe I was taking this for granted, but U did run fsck right?

 

[Armitage]

<< maybe I was taking this for granted, but U did run fsck right? >>



I'll second this.
If this machine has been shutting down hard, make sure you fsck it. And consider moving to a journaled filesystem.
I've seen some wierd crap happen on corrupted filesystems. This wouldn't be the wierdest.