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I ran into this problem when copying a lot of files using tar -cf - * | (cd ../bar; tar -xf - );.

I did search on the issue, and found the below suggestions, none of which worked for me. This problem persists even after reboot.

One peculiarity of the issue is that the destination disk was just a data disk in NTFS, as I'm using a dual boot (ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10). So, I tried to fix it using chkdsk in Windows 10 (see #6 below), but it didn't help much. I cannot copy a file into the disk when booted in Windows 10 either, but see a different message saying, "too much fragmented", so I tried to defragment the disk using the Windows tool, but the optimization didn't proceed. I don't think "too fragemented" is the real issue, as only 2T is used out of 15T space, and the disk is just two months old.

Could someone please advise me on what could be further tried? Thanks a lot for your expertise in advance!

EDIT: In running tar -cf - * | (cd ../bar; tar -xf - );, I guess some overflow happened, which may have corrupted something critical. It might be related to some environment parameter in Ubuntu 20.04, but understanding what could be corrupted and why that happened is beyond my understanding of Linux / Ubuntu

  1. check the disk space <- plenty of space is available (the problematic disk is /mnt/e, the second one from the end) df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 252G 0 252G 0% /dev tmpfs 51G 32M 51G 1% /run /dev/nvme0n1p2 1.8T 828G 912G 48% / tmpfs 252G 15M 252G 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 252G 0 252G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/loop0 128K 128K 0 100% /snap/bare/5 /dev/loop1 56M 56M 0 100% /snap/core18/2246 /dev/loop2 62M 62M 0 100% /snap/core20/1169 /dev/loop3 219M 219M 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/72 /dev/loop5 56M 56M 0 100% /snap/core18/2128 /dev/loop4 66M 66M 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1519 /dev/loop6 9.5M 9.5M 0 100% /snap/htop/3233 /dev/nvme0n1p1 511M 5.3M 506M 2% /boot/efi /dev/nvme1n1p3 1.9T 1.2T 665G 65% /mnt/c /dev/loop7 33M 33M 0 100% /snap/snapd/13640 /dev/loop8 51M 51M 0 100% /snap/snap-store/547 /dev/loop9 33M 33M 0 100% /snap/snapd/13270 /dev/loop10 66M 66M 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1515 tmpfs 51G 16K 51G 1% /run/user/125 /dev/sda2 15T 12T 3.3T 78% /mnt/z /dev/sdb2 15T 2.0T 13T 14% /mnt/e tmpfs 51G 36K 51G 1% /run/user/1000
  1. usage of inodes <- 1% is used in /mnt/e, df -i
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on udev 65989773 1100 65988673 1% /dev tmpfs 65997179 8821 65988358 1% /run /dev/nvme0n1p2 122068992 1554395 120514597 2% / tmpfs 65997179 40 65997139 1% /dev/shm tmpfs 65997179 5 65997174 1% /run/lock tmpfs 65997179 18 65997161 1% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/loop0 29 29 0 100% /snap/bare/5 /dev/loop1 10833 10833 0 100% /snap/core18/2246 /dev/loop2 11732 11732 0 100% /snap/core20/1169 /dev/loop3 18500 18500 0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/72 /dev/loop5 10803 10803 0 100% /snap/core18/2128 /dev/loop4 65095 65095 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1519 /dev/loop6 3605 3605 0 100% /snap/htop/3233 /dev/nvme0n1p1 0 0 0 - /boot/efi /dev/nvme1n1p3 698250164 1718509 696531655 1% /mnt/c /dev/loop7 479 479 0 100% /snap/snapd/13640 /dev/loop8 15841 15841 0 100% /snap/snap-store/547 /dev/loop9 474 474 0 100% /snap/snapd/13270 /dev/loop10 64986 64986 0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1515 tmpfs 65997179 45 65997134 1% /run/user/125 /dev/sda2 3505524112 20634 3505503478 1% /mnt/z /dev/sdb2 13549630048 3278197 13546351851 1% /mnt/e tmpfs 65997179 94 65997085 1% /run/user/1000

  1. disk/file permission issue <- not an issue

  2. increasing inotify.max_user_watches. It was 65536 and increased to 524288, but didn't help

  3. check the sizes returned by du -h and df -h. Both are the same

  4. the disk could have been damaged <- Windows chkdsk found one unrelated file orphaned, which was fixed. On the second chkdsk run, no issue was found in Windows, chkdsk E: /f

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ... Deleted invalid filename Refinitiv\References (2BE9F9) in directory 5. File 2BE9F9 has been orphaned since all its filenames were invalid Windows will recover the file in the orphan recovery phase. Correcting minor file name errors in file 2BE9F9. Deleting index entry Refinitiv\References in index $I30 of file 5. 6 reparse records processed. 3630180 index entries processed. Index verification completed. Phase duration (Index verification): 14.18 minutes. CHKDSK is scanning unindexed files for reconnect to their original directory. 1 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered to original directory. Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 0.00 milliseconds. CHKDSK is recovering remaining unindexed files. 1 unindexed files recovered to lost and found. Lost and found is located at \found.000 Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 0.00 milliseconds. 6 reparse records processed. Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 8.49 milliseconds.
  1. lsof/ | grep "deleted" --> no such file or directory with the below warning
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfsd-fuse file system /run/user/125/gvfs Output information may be incomplete. lsof: WARNING: can't stat() tracefs file system /sys/kernel/debug/tracing Output information may be incomplete.
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I cannot copy a file into the disk when booted in Windows 10 either,

This would suggest your target filesystem is sufficiently broken that not even Windows can use it. If windows' disk checking can't repair it: good luck! You should probably all you can from /mnt/e to some backup medium, and use windows to format that volume.

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  • Thanks Marcus for the comment. Yes, I'll format the disk. To prevent this failure again, should understand what caused this issue in running tar -cf - * | (cd ../bar; tar -xf - ); this tar command must have corrupted something critical, and why. Commented Nov 4, 2021 at 21:46
  • no, tjat command can't corrupt anything. It's just a userland program, not directly manipulating the file system. Anyways, that's a new question, and please don't ask such in the comments. Commented Nov 4, 2021 at 22:57
  • I guess it may be related to some environment parameters in Ubuntu. No, this is not a new question. this is all about this posting, but let me add this part in the main part. Commented Nov 4, 2021 at 23:05
  • .... please don't add new questions to an existing question, but ask them as new questions. Commented Nov 5, 2021 at 19:34
  • The command is unrelated as said, but consider using a simple cp or rsync. No need for such an overly complicated command. For example: cp -R * ../bar Commented Nov 16, 2021 at 9:25

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