use warnings;
use strict;

my $dh, $dir = "/home/msnyder/bin/etc_copy/";
my $dh;
opendir($dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!.";
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You should have got an error message there:

Parentheses missing around "my" list at ./int_perl1-1.pl line 6.
"my" variable $dh masks earlier declaration in same scope at ./int_perl1-1.pl line 7.
Global symbol "$dir" requires explicit package name at ./int_perl1-1.pl line 6.

You want to change that to:

use warnings;
use strict;

my $dir = "/home/msnyder/bin/etc_copy/";

opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!.";
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