Errors when using TAR

[MichaelPotts]

I am trying to extract files from a TAR file, yet I am receiving the following error each time, this is the case for the four files I have tried it for

sco:/tmp # tar -xvf SCO353~1.TAR
tar: blocksize = 20
tar: directory checksum error

sco:/tmp # tar -xvf SCO353~2.TAR
tar: blocksize = 20
tar: directory checksum error

sco:/tmp # tar -xvf SCO353~3.TAR
tar: blocksize = 20
tar: directory checksum error

Any ideas anyone?

Regards

Michael Potts

 

[KenCunningham]

As far as I know 20 is the default blocksize for tar. It looks likely to me that the files have perhaps been corrupted in transmission from whereever you obtained them - this happens particularly often when a file is downloaded to a Windows box and then uploaded to a *nix machine. You could try another download/upload, or try to download to your SCO box directly, missing out the Windows stage. HTH.

 

[KenCunningham]

Michael, please also see thread58-397255 for a further discussion and possible solution. Cheers.

 

[drtrinidad]

I think KenCunningham is right, and I'd like to add another hint: from your filenames it looks like you obtained the tar files via FTP. In DOS/Windows you have to issue the 'binary' command, otherwise it will default to ASCII and your binary files will get messed up. So if it's not practical to FTP directly, you can give that a try.

You may also have got the files via 'doscp' - in that case you can use the '-r' option to force a raw copy without conversion.