Here is the upshot:
- The OPL-update was not running correctly unless it was being run as sudo -E.
- Doing so created a FileFetch directory under the courses folder that could not be accessed by anyone other than root.
- Manually resassigning ownership and setting permissions to 755 resolved my errors.
- Since we only run the OPL-update script between semesters, I am happy to document the workaround and use it in perpetuity.
Thanks to all who chimed in, it was very helpful!