tar.gz this does not look like a tar archive - Linux Mint

I got this error with a tar.gz file I downloaded from the internet. This error "this does not look like a tar archive was what "Archive Manager" in Linux Mint reported.

First I tried:

tar -zxvf file.tar.gz

but it didn't work.


I got around it thanks to this great blog post.

Basically, open up a Terminal window then do these two commands:


gzip -d file.tar.gz

tar -xf file.tar


That's it!