Adding extension in Debug mode getting : "chmod(): operation not permitted" - php

Question

When am adding an extension (EfontAwesome, ref: www.yiiframework.com/extension/efontawesome) to Yii I am getting "chmod(): operation not permitted"
The Call Stack looked something like this..
/opt/lampp/htdocs/yii-1.1.13/framework/utils/CFileHelper.php(133)
121 while(($file=readdir($folder))!==false)
122 {
123 if($file==='.' || $file==='..')
124 continue;
125 $path=$src.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file;
126 $isFile=is_file($path);
127 if(self::validatePath($base,$file,$isFile,$fileTypes,$exclude))
128 {
129 if($isFile)
130 {
131 copy($path,$dst.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file);
132 if(isset($options['newFileMode']))
133 chmod($dst.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file,$options['newFileMode']);
134 }
135 elseif($level)
136 self::copyDirectoryRecursive($path,$dst.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file,$base.'/'.$file,$fileTypes,$exclude,$level-1,$options);
137 }
138 }
139 closedir($folder);
140 }
141
142 /**
143 * Returns the files found under the specified directory and subdirectories.
144 * This method is mainly used by {#link findFiles}.
145 * #param string $dir the source directory
Stack Trace
#0
+ /opt/lampp/htdocs/yii-1.1.13/framework/utils/CFileHelper.php(133): chmod("/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/assets/6950b6ca/css/font-awesome.css", 438)
#1
+ /opt/lampp/htdocs/yii-1.1.13/framework/utils/CFileHelper.php(136): CFileHelper::copyDirectoryRecursive("/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/protected/extensions/EFontAwesome/assets/cs...", "/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/assets/6950b6ca/css", "/css", array(), ...)
#2
+ /opt/lampp/htdocs/yii-1.1.13/framework/utils/CFileHelper.php(63): CFileHelper::copyDirectoryRecursive("/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/protected/extensions/EFontAwesome/assets", "/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/assets/6950b6ca", "", array(), ...)
#3
+ /opt/lampp/htdocs/yii-1.1.13/framework/web/CAssetManager.php(251): CFileHelper::copyDirectory("/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/protected/extensions/EFontAwesome/assets", "/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/assets/6950b6ca", array("exclude" => array(".svn", ".gitignore"), "level" => -1, "newDirMode" => 511, "newFileMode" => 438))
#4
– /opt/lampp/htdocs/im/protected/extensions/EFontAwesome/components/EFontAwesome.php(41): CAssetManager->publish("/opt/lampp/htdocs/im/protected/extensions/EFontAwesome/assets", false, -1, true)
36 public function getAssetsUrl() {
37 if (isset($this->_assetsUrl))
38 return $this->_assetsUrl;
39 else {
40 $assetsPath = Yii::getPathOfAlias('efontawesome.assets');
41 $assetsUrl = Yii::app()->assetManager->publish($assetsPath, false, -1, YII_DEBUG);
42 return $this->_assetsUrl = $assetsUrl;
43 }
44 }
45 }
This is only happening in debug mode and not in production mode.
The directory is writable by the web process (as it can be seen to work in production mode) and this extension was working perfectly well in debug mode few days back,
A brief google search only bought up the this closed issue on github :https://github.com/yiisoft/yii/issues/1853 regarding forcedCopy and linkAssets config conflict, which was fixed in Yii-1.1.13(the version I am using), just to be safe I had also tried setting the config of both to false in the main config files like this
'assetManager' => array(
'linkAssets' => false,
'forceCopy'=>false,
),
but the issue is persisting, any ideas on how to solve this?