I have been trying to run a second level FEAT analysis on my dataset. My first attempt resulted in a hard drive crash on my computer so I ended up getting a new computer - an iMac with the darwin OS. All my data is on a secured network drive. Whenever I run the second level analysis, I get the following error in my terminal:

child process exited abnormally
while executing
"fsl:exec "${FSLDIR}/bin/feat ${fsfroot}.fsf -D $FD -gfeatprep" -b 60 -N feat2_pre -l logs "
invoked from within
"if { $done_something == 0 } {
if { ! $fmri(inmelodic) } {
if { $fmri(level) == 1 } {
for { set session 1 } { $session <= $fmri(mult..."
(file "/usr/local/fsl/bin/feat" line 387)

I looked at the report log and these are the other errors that it was showing:

cp: design.fsf: fchmod failed: Permission denied
/usr/local/fsl/bin/feat_model design
mkdir .files;cp /usr/local/fsl/doc/fsl.css .files;cp -r /usr/local/fsl/doc/images .files/images
cp: .files/fsl.css: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/3.1r.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/3.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/flirt-bg.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fsl-bg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fsl-bg.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fsl-logo-big.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fsl-logo.gif: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fsl-logo.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fsl-logo.png: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fsl-macos-snapshot.tiff: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fslstart.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fslstart.png: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/fugue-bg.jpg: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/tick.gif: fchmod failed: Permission denied
cp: .files/images/vert2.png: fchmod failed: Permission denied


cat ../design.lcon | awk '{ print }' > design.lcon
cp: example_func.nii.gz: fchmod failed: Permission denied
while executing
"if { [ catch {
for { set argindex 1 } { $argindex < $argc } { incr argindex 1 } {
switch -- [ lindex $argv $argindex ] {
-I {
incr arginde..."
(file "/usr/local/fsl/bin/feat" line 309)
Error encountered while running in main feat script, halting.
cp: example_func.nii.gz: fchmod failed: Permission denied

I've literally tried everything I could think of, including:
1) Checking permissions for the files and folders - I have admin rights on them all
2) Running a new first level analysis (which ran without giving me any errors whatsoever) but the second level analysis still threw me all of these errors
3) I've even tried changing the OS from Darwin to OS X
4) I've checked all my inputs to make sure the images and files are there and they are
5) I've re-installed FSL (several times)

Any help to tackle this problem would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Neetu Nair
Doctoral Candidate, Neuroscience,
Center for Translational Neuroscience
University of Missouri, Columbia
USA

Hi. You may get an answer to your question on this NITRC open-discussion list, but note that the most active support for FSL related questions is probably found on the FSL mail list at:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webad...

Good luck!

Has anyone confirmed what caused this error? I'm experiencing the same issue, but all systems are up to date. Any and all help would be great!

This might be because your network drive doesn't support unix-style permissions (or they can't be transferred properly).  Can you run the analysis on a local disk and then move the results to the network drive?