What can I do about “cpio: read error while unpacking archive”?

Question

I get the following error when I attempt to install a .rpm file:

error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/local/jive/opt/openoffice.org/basis3.2/program/libicudata.so.40;4d805c75: cpio: read

What could be causing it, and how do I resolve it?

Answer 1

It's truncated or corrupted, and the solution is to re-download it. Yes, I know, painful. If you're lucky, though, you may be able to use wget --continue to pick up from where it chopped off.