Unix socket permission denied - parent directory traversal blocked

Nginx cannot access Gunicorn's Unix socket even when socket permissions are correct (srwxrwxrwx), because parent directories lack execute permissions preventing the www-data user from traversing the directory path

Grant execute permissions on all parent directories in the socket path: sudo chmod +x /home/ubuntu and sudo chmod +x /home/ubuntu/my-packing-buddy. Verify socket has srwxrwxrwx permissions. Test access with curl --unix-socket [path] http://localhost/