Symptoms

Programs such as qkview create a .tar file (tarball) using libtar. If any of the files collected are greater than 2 GB, the output tar file cannot be read by /bin/tar. This occurs due to a limitation of the file compression library employed by qkview command; the system cannot collect files larger than 2 GB in size in a Qkview. The qkview command may generate output that iHealth cannot parse, and that the tar command cannot extract.

Impact

No qkview diagnostics file is created. Although you can extract the qkview tarball using /usr/bin/libtar, the file will be a zero-length file. Cannot submit a qkview to iHealth for analysis. Other applications using libtar will produce invalid tar files.

Conditions

-- The file collected via libtar (e.g., by qkview or other program dynamically linking with /usr/lib/libtar-1.2.11) is greater than 2 GB. -- A 2 GB or larger file exists in a directory that qkview normally collects.

Workaround

Remove the file larger than 2 GB from the system prior to running qkview or other program that uses libtar.

Fix Information

With the fix to third party software, libtar, programs using libtar no longer create an unusable tarball when dealing with files larger than 2 GB.

Behavior Change