tar dies on making tape backup

[Micah]

Jaime wrote:
> On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:24 PM, Micah wrote:
>> I had the same problem recently and Google told me to look for files 
>> with malformed dates. I used "find" to search for files dated before 
>> Jan 1, 1970, and found one dated 1901. As soon as I "touch"ed the 
>> problematic file, tar worked.
> 
>     Many thanks.  When I get to work tomorrow, I'll use find.  I'll have 
> to check the man page for the right parameters (I don't usually search 
> by date) but I think that I can handle that.  ;)
> 
>     Anyway, like I said, the help is much appreciated.
> 
>                             Jaime

To save you some time, from my notes:
#finds all files modified before 1971
find / ! -newermt "1971-01-01 20:30"


HTH,
Micah