I find it interesting that the client file path is being cut off ~= 100 characters.
That's a very good observation and an important clue. The file header in any tar file is limited to 100 characters, and there is a special extension (basically another dummy file header with a payload containing the real long path) to allow longer paths. The same mechanism is used for long soft link targets.
So either this a very old version of tar, as you suggest, or the extension header isn't being recognized properly.
Craig
