last command issue - Invalid record size. Unable to continue ...

[AhmedHussien]

Hello everone.

I have an issue when running last command in my hp-ux system:

#last
Invalid record size. Unable to continue ...
#

OS Version: B.11.23

[Dennis Handly]

How important is this info?

See my replies here:

https://community.hpe.com/t5/System-Administration/Unable-to-get-LAST-command-output-Error-Invalid-record-size/m-p/6865723

https://community.hpe.com/t5/System-Administration/no-ouput-from-command-last/m-p/4039936

https://community.hpe.com/t5/System-Administration/last-returns-no-login-info/m-p/5269768

[AhmedHussien]

Hi Dennis,

Thank you for your reply.

The contents of the file are not important.

I ran the following to scratch the file:

#echo > /var/adm/wtmp

Then:

#last
Invalid record size. Unable to continue ...

#ls -ltr /var/adm/wtmp
-rwxrwxr-x 1 adm adm 1 Jul 6 09:19 /var/adm/wtmp

#file /var/adm/wtmp
/var/adm/wtmp: commands text

same issue still exist.  

[Duncan Edmonstone · Accepted solution]

Should you not be clearing down the wtmps file, not wtmp?

> /var/adm/wtmps

[AhmedHussien]

It works now.

Thank you  Duncan, and Dennis. 

[Dennis Handly]

>  # echo > /var/adm/wtmp

Ack!  You should not be using echo, that's an example of how the file gets corrupted.