tar skipped an entry while extracting (${code}): ${message}

Error message

tar skipped an entry while extracting (${code}): ${message}

What it means

When Cube extracts a downloaded archive (e.g. a driver/native binary via tar), non-fatal tar warnings are logged here with the format 'tar skipped an entry while extracting (<code>): <message>'. TAR_ENTRY_ERROR codes are escalated to internal exceptions; other codes are just printed.

Source

Thrown at packages/cubejs-backend-shared/src/http-utils.ts:105

 * `TAR_ENTRY_ERROR` is not only the path-rejection code — measured, tar reports
 * per-entry write failures through it too (a read-only target raises it once per
 * entry, same as a `..` name does). Both belong on this side of the split: a
 * half-extracted install is a real failure, and escalating it is what the opt-in
 * `exit` setting asks for. Everything else is logged and ignored, as tar treats
 * it.
 */
const tarOptions = {
  preserveOwner: false,
  onwarn: (code: string, message: string) => {
    const warning = `tar skipped an entry while extracting (${code}): ${message}`;

    if (code === 'TAR_ENTRY_ERROR') {
      internalExceptions(new Error(warning));

      return;
    }

    console.warn(warning);
  },
};

/**
 * Extract a downloaded archive into `cwd`, which is created if missing.
 *
 * Dispatches on magic bytes, not the filename, because there is no filename to
 * dispatch on: `streamWithProgress` saves downloads as
 * `crypto.randomBytes(16).toString('hex')`, with no extension.
 *
 * Handles gzip (`.tar.gz` / `.tgz`), uncompressed tar and zip. Two gaps are
 * deliberate and both throw a named error rather than failing obscurely: bzip2,
 * and pre-POSIX v7 tars, which carry no `ustar` magic at offset 257 to detect them
 * by.
 *
 * Neither backend writes outside `cwd`: `tar` strips a leading `/` on extraction and
 * drops entries containing `..`, and `extract-zip` rejects entries that resolve outside
 * the target.

View on GitHub (pinned to 7d981676b3)

Solutions

Check the logged <code>/<message> to see which entry was skipped and why
Re-download or clear the cached archive so it is extracted fresh
Check disk space and permissions on the target directory
If functionality breaks because of the skipped entry, report it — otherwise this warning can be ignored

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

// after download, before extract
const stat = fs.statSync(archivePath);
if (stat.size === 0) throw new Error('Downloaded archive is empty; re-download');

Try / catch

try {
  extractTar(archive, { cwd: targetDir });
} catch (e) {
  // e.g. TAR_ENTRY_ERROR surfaced as internal exception
  console.error('Extraction failed:', e);
  fs.rmSync(targetDir, { recursive: true, force: true });
  // retry with a fresh download
}

Prevention

Verify checksums/sizes of downloaded archives
Ensure target filesystem supports all entry types
Retry extraction once on failure with a clean directory

When it happens

Trigger: A tar warning callback fires during extractTar with a code other than TAR_ENTRY_ERROR, e.g. a skipped entry, unsupported file type, or duplicate entry while unpacking a downloaded artifact.

Common situations: Corrupted or partially downloaded archives; filesystems not supporting certain entries (symlinks, special files); permissions issues causing entries to be skipped.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of cube-js/cube@7d981676b3 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/742fa7094430277d. Report an issue: GitHub.