Solving Apache "search permissions are missing on a component of the path" issue

I'm learning as I go, so patience for my n00b tech skills is appreciated in advance.

I have a fresh Ubuntu 18 VPS. Fresh Apache (no apache2.conf changes). Fresh vsftpd. I added a user, added it to www-data usergroup, and chmod 775 /var/www/. Success, I can read/write that folder via FTP. But I've pooched Apache somehow.

Going to the root of my IP or domain on a browser returns an "Index of /" page with an empty table. Going to a file returns "403 Forbidden". Looking at the apache error log tells me "search permissions are missing on a component of the path", but I'm unable to find out how to troubleshoot that.

The only clue I have to work with is the following:

namei --modes /var/www/html
f: /var/www/html
drwxr-xr-x /
drwxr-xr-x var
drwxrwsr-x www
drwxr-xr-x html

Thank you

Solution 1:

Use "find /var/www/html -type d -ls". One of the subdirs hasn't got the necessary x's.