What is tar error message " Cannot open: Invalid argument"

Question

I download xcrysden source package from here http://www.xcrysden.org/download/xcrysden-1.5.60.tar.gz

Then I extract it using

tar zxvf xcrysden-1.5.60.tar.gz

However, I got several errors, as tar zxvf xcrysden-1.5.60.tar.gz|grep tar: shows

tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/examples/XSF_Files/c2h4\:Ag001.xsf: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/TclTk\:LICENSE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/Togl\:LICENSE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/Mesa\:LICENSE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/Meschach\:LICENSE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/LGPL\:LICENSE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/GL2PS\:LICENSE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/FFTW3\:LICENCE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: xcrysden-1.5.60/otherLICENSES/BWidget\:LICENSE: Cannot open: Invalid argument
    tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

What does these message mean? Why does the extracting not complete?

Answer 1

Likely the disk you are extracting to is formatted FAT*. The FAT* filesystems do not allow : to appear in directory entries (filenames). In order to extract these files, you will need to extract to a different disk or partition whose filesystem does support such filenames — common ones include:

• btrfs
• ext3
• ext4
• FFS
• HFS Plus (but not plain HFS)
• NTFS
• XFS