dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile often fails

[Phil Nitschke <phil@caemrad.com.au>]

Often when using dpkg to upgrade this or that xxx.deb file, I get
something like this:

Preparing to replace xxxx ...
Unpacking replacement xxxx ...

gzip: stdout: Broken pipe
dpkg-deb: subprocess gzip -dc returned error exit status 1
dpkg: error processing xxxx.deb (--install):
 subprocess dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile returned error exit status 2

When I dpkg-deb --extract the files, there is nothing wrong.

Why would the --fsys-tarfile option be having problems?

Thanks,

-- 
Phil