On Wed, May 16, 2007 at 12:09:56PM -0700, Jay Wilton wrote:
> I have a new build of debian etch 4.0. When I try to
> unpack a tar.bz2 file it fails silently. ala
> tar jxvf example.tar.bz2 , just fails with no error.
As in a non-zero exit code? Or just deafening silence?
> file /bin/bzip2
> /bin/bzip2: empty
What about these files:
- /bin/bunzip2
- /bin/bzcat
They should be identical to bzip2...
While you're at it, better check the other files in the same package:
# cd /
# md5sum --check /var/lib/dpkg/info/bzip2.md5sums
If you already have debsums installed, you should consider using that
too.
> I reinstall with a: apt-get install --reinstall bzip2
> and it still happens but not every time. I have purged
> bzip2 and reinstalled, but it still happens. This is my
> second install with this problem, so I'm a bit worried.
"not every time" !? Weird! That implies that you reinstalled even
though nothing was wrong!? Or am I misunderstanding you?
It also implies that the downloaded .deb is OK, which is good. But
double-check:
$ dpkg --contents /var/cache/apt/archives/bzip2*.deb | less
> The same thing just happened to /bin/gzip. It seems to
> randomly happen. Anyone else having this problem?
What about other files in the same package? (same command as above but
with a different package name)
And it gets weirder and weirder... So other packages are affected too?
Something is seriously screwy and affecting the whole directory.
Possibly the whole file system...
Questions:
- Is the filesystem running full? (sorry - gotta ask)
- What does the system log say? Anything suspicious? Any IO errors,
filesystem corruptions etc?
- When was the filesystem last fsck'd?
Sorry for all the questions, but this *is* intriguing :-)
--
Karl E. Jorgensen
karl@jorgensen.org.uk http://www.jorgensen.org.uk/
karl@jorgensen.com http://karl.jorgensen.com
==== Today's fortune:
Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.
-- R. Heinlein
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