Package extraction error on Ubuntu 14.04

[guy]

I have the following issue when trying to install new packages, w/ version 01.08.04.1171 on Ubuntu 14.04:
Package extraction error: /tmp/PixInsight64-update/pixinsight.com/20150811-script.zip (exit code = 255)

[bmorrelltx]

I am also having all kinds of errors.  When extracting the files there is an ignoring syntax for some selinx issue then when I ran the installer the is an unexpected ")" and then is stops.  Please respond.... Bruce

[Juan Conejero]

I have the following issue when trying to install new packages, w/ version 01.08.04.1171 on Ubuntu 14.04:
Package extraction error: /tmp/PixInsight64-update/pixinsight.com/20150811-script.zip (exit code = 255)

I cannot reproduce this problem on Ubuntu 15.04, Fedora 19, Fedora 20 and Redhat EL 7.1. All update packages are being extracted without problems.

All update packages currently available for version 1.8.4 are standard .zip archives. PixInsight extracts these files by running the "unzip -o -q <filename>" command. This command is absolutely standard on all Linux distributions and cannot fail under normal working conditions. As a probable solution, see if your /tmp system folder is full or is too small.

[Juan Conejero]

I am also having all kinds of errors.  When extracting the files there is an ignoring syntax for some selinx issue then when I ran the installer the is an unexpected ")" and then is stops.  Please respond.... Bruce

To extract the distribution archive for Linux you should run this command:

tar -xzf PI-linux-x86_64-01.08.04.1171-20150804-c.tar.gz

Are you using this command?

On a Linux distribution without SELinux support, this is the exact warning message that you should get:

tar: Ignoring unknown extended header keyword 'LIBARCHIVE.xattr.security.selinux'

These messages are shown because we generate all installation packages on workstations running Redhat Linux, where SELinux is always enabled for security. SELinux extended file attributes are stored in .tar archives. Since Ubuntu does not use SELinux, its tar program does not understand these extended file attributes, and hence the warning messages.

These messages are harmless and can be safely ignored on platforms without SELinux support, such as Ubuntu. They should never prevent correct package extraction. For example, the distribution package is extracted without problems on Ubuntu 15.04, despite the warnings.

[guy]

All update packages currently available for version 1.8.4 are standard .zip archives. PixInsight extracts these files by running the "unzip -o -q <filename>" command. This command is absolutely standard on all Linux distributions and cannot fail under normal working conditions. As a probable solution, see if your /tmp system folder is full or is too small.

Your answer gives the solution of my problem : unzip was not installed (I have a Ubuntu 14.04 minimal install) so I did a
sudo apt-get install unzip
and everything went back to normal as for the packages update.
By the way I also did a
sudo apt-get install libcanberra-gtk-module
right after the PI installation to avoid an error message.

These messages are harmless and can be safely ignored on platforms without SELinux support, such as Ubuntu.

Me too! I also ran into these error messages during PI installation, and I found they were harmless after some initial puzzlement. I am glad to learn this is due to SELinux, however it would be a good idea to warn the future users in the Linux installation tutorial, since they could be puzzled as well.

Thank you for solving my issue
Guy

[guy]

Your answer gives the solution of my problem : unzip was not installed (I have a Ubuntu 14.04 minimal install)

I'm sorry I wrote the above post too fast, since with the previous issue solved, I ran into an additional problem :

After download and unzip, PixInsight says :
The updates will be installed when you exit this instance of the PixInsight core application
and then at the exit I got
Update packages have been scheduled for installation
Do you want to install the updates now
Yes
Fatal error : error writing settings data (IsoString)

So what is this IsoString ?
Is this due to an other package missing or something badly configured on my Ubuntu install ?
Thank you
Guy

[guy]

At last, I found a workaround for the above mentioned issue, which is to run PixInsight as root.