Hello, I am having trouble unzipping my data extract. I downloaded CPS data over several years. When I try decompressing the file in both Mac and Windows, I get an “unexpected end of file” error. Any idea about why this might be? Could the file be too large? Thank you.

IPUMS is looking into an issue on our end that seems to be producing faulty gzip files. I will let you know when we have learned more about the issue and resolved it.

Our IT group has identified the issue and implemented a fix for this problem. You should be able to simply re-download your requested data file; you do NOT need to resubmit your extract. Please let us know if you experience any further issues.

Hi Alan, Kari, I hope you’re both well in health and spirit these days. I’m seeing the same issue with ACS extracts. I’ve tried a number of times, even with minimal files of just a handful of variables and get the “unexpected end of file” error too. I’ve tried decompressing under both Windows and …

I was trying to download the compressed data to a remote server that I’m accessing from my Windows machine via samba. This thread describes the problem: https://sourceforge.net/p/sevenzip/discussion/45797/thread/6358ccaa/ Once I downloaded directly to my windows machine I didn’t have a problem. A…

Hi Kari, Is there a chance that this error cropped back up again? I have tried downloading my .dat file a couple of times and every time I try to unpack it I get Error 79 on my mac. I also tried unpacking it in the terminal and was unsuccessful there as well. It’s a small extract, so I don’t think …

I was unable to replicate this issue with your data extract. I was able to decompress the file and read it into Stata. If you are still not able to decompress the files, please email ipums@umn.edu so we can provide more targeted help.

I am following up on this post to note that we also generally encourage users to try The Unarchiver for decompressing data files; occasionally the .gz extension poses a unique issue for Mac users.

Hello Karl, I use the unarchiver and the file still won’t open. I am not sure which step went wrong, what shall I do? Thank you so much for your help!

Trouble decompressing file

CPS

KariWilliams January 12, 2023, 10:41pm 10

I am just following up to indicate that I think this question was resolved in another post.

Topic		Replies	Views
.dat files won't unzip CPS	2	1862	May 4, 2021
Unable to extract data USA	2	79	January 14, 2026
Extraction problem USA	4	183	March 31, 2025
Data extract download too small CPS	2	86	October 14, 2025
Uncompressing .gz files General	2	745	November 17, 2023

Trouble decompressing file

Related topics