Can't read or write to directory CFFILE despite 777 permissions coldfusion

Question

This is installed on a Unix system I don't have direct access to, but can get insight on by sitting with a network team.

The problem is this, I have 3 folders I need access to, read and write. The problem is, I only have access to 1 of them, and only read. This is via ColdFusion, I can get into them fine with the user they are assigned to (and the CF server runs on, which is the "www" user).

I CAN read and write to the temporary file directory, the place files are stored before they are moved to the destination directory (SERVER-INF/ etc etc etc), but that's not helpful. I have tried having the network people set the permissions for the other folders to the same thing, but with no results. The current settings of the folder I can access are rwxrws--- and the other folders are rwxrwxr-x, so I should have more permissions ( the "s" is not a mistake in the first folder).

We have tried setting the other folders to 777 and we did not even get read capability. Does the server need to be restarted on a Unix box after setting new permissions for ColdFusion to be able to get to them? I'm out of ideas right now, I'll take any new suggestions.

TL;DR

All using ColdFusion

temp directory - can read and write to

folder 1 - can read from (including subdirectories) folder 2 - cannot read or write to (permission denied) folder 3 - cannot read or write to (permission denied)

Goal: Get upload functionality working.

Edit: Server using apache

Answer 1

Just a random guess... Have you checked that paths you are trying to access are fully correct? They should be absolute for file operations, and www user must have X permissions on the all path directories -- to enter them.