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The error message “unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/xxxx: cpio: open Failed” indicates that the system failed to install the rpm since it cannot unpack the package under the /usr/bin directory.

For example, you may see the error message as stated below while installing a ‘nano’ package using yum

Error unpacking rpm package nano-1.x.x.i386
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/bin/nano;4c70f874: cpio: open Failed:

This indicates that the file /usr/bin/nano cannot be created under the /usr/bin directory which mostly happens if an attribute is set on the directory.

Use ‘lsattr’ command to check the attributes set on the directory:

root@server [~]# lsattr /usr | grep bin

If the output is something like the following, it states that the immutable bit (lowercase ‘i’) is set to the “/usr/bin” directory thus denying to write under that directory.

----i-----I-- /usr/bin

Use ‘chattr’ command to remove the attributes from the directory:

root@server [~]# chattr -i /usr/bin

Once done, you can successfully install the rpm.

You may receive the error “-bash: phpize: command not found” while executing the “phpize” command. The reason is the php-devel package is not installed on the server. The easiest way to install the package is to use ‘yum’.

SSH to your server as root and execute:

# yum install php-devel

Once done, you should be able to execute the command ‘phpize’.

The error message “Can’t create/write to file /tmp/” appears when any application tries to write it’s temporary files to the /tmp directory and it is unable to write to due to the permission issue. In such a case, make sure the permissions of the /tmp directory is writable i.e. 1777.

1) SSH to your server as root.

2) Set the permissions of /tmp directory

root@server [~]# chmod 1777 /tmp

3) To verify the permissions, execute

root@server [~]# ls -ld /tmp
drwxrwxrwt  6 root root 4096 Aug 25 11:23 /tmp/

Once done, the website/application should work fine.

You may receive a “Table ‘mysql.servers’ doesn’t exist” error message while adding a database user in Plesk OR while restarting the Mysql service. The complete error message look like:

Error: Connection to the database server has failed:
Table ‘mysql.servers’ doesn’t exist

OR

Can’t open and lock privilege tables:
Table ‘mysql.servers’ doesn’t exist

The problem mostly occurs when Mysql server is upgraded from an older to a newer version and the upgrade remains incomplete. Since Mysql often introduces new tables with the newer versions, you need to run the “mysql_fix_privilege_tables” script located in the “/usr/bin/” directory. The script makes sure the mysql database is updated with the latest contents thus fixing the privileges of the database users as well.

To fix the issue, ssh to your server as root and execute the command:

On a plain Linux OR Linux/cPanel server,

# mysql_fix_privilege_tables -uroot -p<mysql password here> –verbose

On a Linux/Plesk server.

# mysql_fix_privilege_tables -uadmin -p<plesk admin password here> –verbose

where, –verbose will display what the command is doing.

The error message “make: *** [ffmpeg_frame.lo] Error 1″ is received while compiling ffmpeg-php and the reason is  the misspelled file name. If you notice, “ffmpeg_frame.lo” file is missing from the ffmpeg-php directory, instead a file called “ffmpeg_frame.loT” is present which shouldn’t be there.

The solution is to rename the file from ffmpeg_frame.loT to ffmpeg_frame.lo. Go to the directory

# cd /path/to/directory/ffmpeg-php-0.x.x

and rename the file

# cp ffmpeg_frame.loT ffmpeg_frame.lo

Once done, compile ffmpeg-php again.

Related Links:
Unable to load dynamic library ffmpeg.so OR error PIX_FMT_RGBA32