This error occurs when your system's dpkg version is too old to handle .deb packages compressed with xz. Update dpkg to resolve the compatibility issue.
Fixes dpkg-deb: error: archive 'filename.deb' has premature member 'control.tar.xz'
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dpkgsudo apt-get cleansudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install dpkgdpkg-deb: error: archive 'filename.deb' has premature member 'control.tar.xz'
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The dpkg package manager on your system cannot recognize or decompress the xz-compressed control.tar.xz file inside the .deb package. This is a version compatibility issue: newer packages use xz compression for the control archive, but older dpkg versions only support gzip compression (control.tar.gz). When dpkg encounters the xz-compressed member, it fails because it expects the traditional gzip format.
Run the following commands to update your dpkg package:
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dpkgThis will upgrade dpkg to a version that supports xz-compressed control.tar.xz files. The fix was backported to Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty) in dpkg version 1.17.5ubuntu5.8 and later.
After updating dpkg, ensure your package cache is clean and up to date:
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get updateThis removes cached packages and ensures you have the latest package metadata from your repositories.
Now attempt to install or upgrade the package that was failing:
sudo apt-get install <package-name>Or to upgrade all packages:
sudo apt-get upgradeThe updated dpkg should now be able to handle xz-compressed .deb files without errors.
If you are building .deb packages and need to support older systems, you can control the compression format using dpkg-deb options. Use dpkg-deb --build -Zgzip to create control.tar.gz instead of control.tar.xz, or use sbt-native-packager with debianNativeBuildOptions in Debian := Seq("-Zgzip", "-z3"). The --uniform-compression and --no-uniform-compression flags also affect which compression format is used. For legacy Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty) systems, consider upgrading to a modern LTS release (20.04 or 22.04) as Trusty reached end-of-life and only receives Extended Security Maintenance updates.