I've posted the information below twice to the admin list without getting a solution, so I'm promoting it to a bug.
I'm not subscribed to the bug list, so please cc me on responses and I'll try to supply information as needed. I'm getting the following error message: pg_dump: [tar archiver] could not write to tar member (wrote 39, attempted 166) Here are the particulars: -I'm running this command: "pg_dump -Ft prod > prod.dump.tar" (The database is named prod) -The dump gets about 1/4 of the way through, and then gives me the error message and dies. -I'm running PostgreSQL version 7.3.2. -There is plenty of disk space available. -The same command on the same database and server with same specs worked last week when I was on V7.2.1. -Since upgrading, more data has been added, but the structure of the database is unchanged. -Using the -v switch shows me that it always quits on the same table, but otherwise adds no new information. -The part of the error message in parentheses changes on each run. For instance, on the last run, I got "(wrote 64, attempted 174)" The rest of the message remains consistent. -The table it quits on is fairly large- about 2.6GB. It is both "wide" because it contains a text field that is usually a few sentences of text, and "long", containing 9,137,808 records. This is also the only table in our database that is split into multiple files. -A text dump using this command works fine and exports the entire database without a problem: "pg_dump prod > prod.dump.text" -I have set up an identical system (Same hardware, same software, same Data in DB) to do testing on, and confirmed that I get the same error on this system, so it appears to not be a hardware error or just a bad copy of the software. -Several folks suggested that I was hitting the 2GB file size limit. This is not the case. Here is a snip from the console log on the second machine that I'm using to diagnose with: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ pg_dump -Ft alpha > dump.tar pg_dump: [tar archiver] could not write to tar member (wrote 110, attempted 398) [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ls -al dump.tar -rw-r--r-- 1 nickf nickf 1388367872 Jul 21 14:49 dump.tar [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ Thanks for looking this over- please let me know if anyone has any ideas about this. -Regards, -Nick --------------------------------------------------------------------- Nick Fankhauser [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone 1.765.965.7363 Fax 1.765.962.9788 doxpop - Court records at your fingertips - http://www.doxpop.com/ ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html