Our developers did something, but "didn't."

We have one database and one Concrete5 installation and 76 websites. All work OK, but 2 websites are loading fine, but can't load the admin site and get "failed to create cache path" error when trying to do so. When going into the code for this error (https://docs.mnkras.com/tedivm_2stash_2src_2_stash_2_utilities_8php_source.html)
it shows that it is looking for the proper path and permissions and if not found, then give the error.

The cache folder has been emptied and deleted.
Permissions have been checked and they match that on the other websites.
Logs don't show any indication that anything is wrong

Some other things have been done to troubleshoot, but I'll have to wait for that person to come back from a meeting to fill you in on that.

To us system admins, obviously something has been changed for these two sites and it has to do with path and permissions, but don't know where to look for those changes since the manual check on the website folders seems seem like all is in order. So perhaps something got changed in code.

Any thoughts?