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I am trying to append a .txt file to my already created .tar archive file. But the following error is showing up:

    tar -rvf kits.tar example.txt
    tar: This does not look like a tar archive
    tar: Skipping to next header
    tar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers
    example.txt
    tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

Kindly explain this

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  • 3
    Are you sure this is a tar archive and not a compressed one? What does file kits.tar say?
    – Nikos C.
    Dec 8, 2012 at 19:03
  • You sure it's not compressed? what does file kits.tar report? it is possible that older versions of tar would report this error instead of the more sensible 'cannot update a compressed archive' Dec 8, 2012 at 19:04
  • I'm not seeing a programming question here. Dec 8, 2012 at 19:04
  • @Nikos : u might be right, when i do : tar -xzvf kits.tar I see this: gzip: stdin: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored tar: Child returned status 2 tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
    – dig_123
    Dec 8, 2012 at 19:20
  • Can you rename it to kits.tar.gz or kits.tgz and try again your tar xzvf kits.txt example.txt?
    – ott--
    Dec 8, 2012 at 20:14

1 Answer 1

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It's probably a compressed tar archive with the wrong extension (it should be .tar.gz).

This can happen when you download a tar.gz (or tar.bz2) file, as some browsers try to be smart and save it as a .tar without actually decompressing it, or don't decompress it correctly.

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