diff --git a/checkcopyattrs.sh b/checkcopyattrs.sh
index 9196795..a9149d7 100755
--- a/checkcopyattrs.sh
+++ b/checkcopyattrs.sh
@@ -49,6 +49,9 @@ setfattr -n user.pax.flags -v "r" c
 [ "$(getfattr --only-values -n user.bas f/a)" == "x" ]
 [ "$(getfattr --only-values -n user.pax.flags f/a)" == "mr" ]
 
+# Check that we can copy large files
+truncate -s2G a
+./install-xattr a x
 
 # The following are just tests to make sure the raw install
 # options don't get lost in our optargs parsing.
diff --git a/install-xattr.c b/install-xattr.c
index 0b5eb25..3e20b63 100644
--- a/install-xattr.c
+++ b/install-xattr.c
@@ -365,8 +365,10 @@ main(int argc, char* argv[])
 
 			if (!opts_target_directory) {
 				target = argv[last];
-				if (stat(target, &s) != 0)
+				if (stat(target, &s) != 0) {
+					err(1, "failed to stat %s", target);
 					return EXIT_FAILURE;
+				}
 				target_is_directory = S_ISDIR(s.st_mode);
 			} else {
 				/* target was set above with the -t option */
@@ -381,8 +383,10 @@ main(int argc, char* argv[])
 					last++;
 
 				for (i = first; i < last; i++) {
-					if (stat(argv[i], &s) != 0)
+					if (stat(argv[i], &s) != 0) {
+						err(1, "failed to stat %s", argv[i]);
 						return EXIT_FAILURE;
+					}
 					/* We reproduce install's behavior and skip
 					 * all extra directories on the command line
 					 * that are not the final target directory.