Tar errors

[Harry Putnam]

Tim Littlemore <support at 1steasy.co.uk> writes:

> On Monday 15 Dec 2003 10:37 am, Ronald Hahm wrote:
>> Has anyone run into the following when using the tar command?
>>
>> tar: <filename> file changed as we read it
>>
>> I noticed this error on newer versions of the kernel in RedHat 9.  I ended
>> up moving back to the original kernel in RedHat 9.
>>
>> Can anyone give me some advice as to what I need to do?  Will running the
>> newest version of the kernel through the up2date service fix this problem?
>
> The only reason you've never seen this before is just conincidence. It isn't a 
> bug or anything, it's just tar telling you that as it was tarring the file 
> up, the contents of it changed. This is pretty common when tarring log files.
> It isn't a problem as such, it just means that the version of the file in your 
> tar won't match the current version of that file.
>
> There's nothing you can do to the kernel to stop this.

Not to be a wiseacre but:
Are you sure of this?  I've seen this for the first time recently too
and have used tar extensively since about 1996.  I notice it only
when taring files on a dos partition.  Further it seemed to go away
when I moved the file to ext3 then tarred.