Fix: "tar: exiting with failure status due to previous errors"

Tar

Tar files are archive files that are most often used in Unix-based operating systems for compression.

Fixes

There are several potential causes for this error message.

tar: exiting with failure status due to previous errors

It is possible that the folder being compressed contains a file for which the user has limited rights. For this, the sudo command should be added before the command-line script.

There might be some other possible causes for the error. To find the causes of these errors, you will have to carefully read the log displayed on the terminal and look up the individual error messages. Some of these errors might look like:

tar: removing '/' from front of names
tar: /home/tom/.gvfs: cannot stat: permission denied
tar: /run/synaptic.socket: socket ignored …. 9 of these different folders
tar: /var/lib/citadel/data: file changes as we read it …. 3 of these different folders

Most of these errors are unlikely to cause any problems with the resultant compressed file but, nonetheless, they should​ be looked up.