bower says "invalid tar file", but it's actually a valid tar file

Question

I uploaded a bower component as a tar file, and even though I know it's a valid tar file, when running bower install, I get the following error:

bower my-component#*                 error invalid tar file
    Stack trace: Error: invalid tar file
        at Extract.Parse._startEntry (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/tar/lib/parse.js:144:13)
        at Extract.Parse._process (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/tar/lib/parse.js:125:12)
        at BlockStream.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/tar/lib/parse.js:46:8)
        at BlockStream.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17)
        at BlockStream._emitChunk (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/tar/node_modules/block-stream/block-stream.js:145:10)
        at BlockStream.resume (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/tar/node_modules/block-stream/block-stream.js:58:15)
        at Extract.Reader.resume (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/fstream/lib/reader.js:253:34)
        at Entry.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/tar/lib/parse.js:256:8)
        at Entry.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:92:17)
        at Entry.resume (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/tar/lib/entry.js:92:8)

    Console trace: Trace
        at StandardRenderer.error (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/renderers/StandardRenderer.js:74:17)
        at Logger.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/bin/bower:114:22)
        at Logger.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17)
        at Logger.emit (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/bower-logger/lib/Logger.js:29:39)
        at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/commands/install.js:35:16
        at _rejected (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:807:24)
        at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:833:30
        at Promise.when (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:1077:31)
        at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:751:41)
        at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:573:44

    System info: Bower version: 
    1.3.0 Node version: 0.10.26
    OS: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 x64

I have checked other tar files that have been uploaded the same way, and they look pretty much the same as mine. Ideas?

Answer 1

The issue was the version of the tar file. I created the tar file using a Maven plugin: maven-assembly-plugin, but didn't specify the version. However it worked after setting the version to 2.4.