diff -up octave-4.2.0/libinterp/dldfcn/gzip.cc.gzip octave-4.2.0/libinterp/dldfcn/gzip.cc
--- octave-4.2.0/libinterp/dldfcn/gzip.cc.gzip	2016-11-13 08:16:10.000000000 -0700
+++ octave-4.2.0/libinterp/dldfcn/gzip.cc	2016-12-08 20:59:14.216903463 -0700
@@ -376,15 +376,18 @@ namespace octave
             while (strm->avail_out == 0);
 
             if (strm->avail_in != 0)
-              throw std::runtime_error ("failed to wrote file");
+              throw std::runtime_error ("failed to write file");
           }
       }
 
       void
       close (void)
       {
-        if (deflateEnd (strm) != Z_OK)
-          throw std::runtime_error ("failed to close zlib stream");
+        if (deflateEnd (strm) != Z_OK) {
+          char msg[256];
+          snprintf(msg, 255, "failed to close zlib stream: %s", strm->msg);
+          throw std::runtime_error (msg);
+        }
         strm = nullptr;
 
         // We have no error handling for failing to close source, let
@@ -449,14 +452,15 @@ namespace octave
             {
               X::zip (path, dest_path);
             }
-          catch (...)
+          catch ( const std::exception & ex )
             {
+              warning ("gzip: zip threw exception: %s", ex.what());
               // Error "handling" is not including filename on the output list.
               // Also remove created file which maybe was not even created
               // in the first place.  Note that it is possible for the file
               // to exist in the first place and for X::zip to not have
               // clobber it yet but we remove it anyway by design.
-              octave::sys::unlink (dest_path);
+              //octave::sys::unlink (dest_path);
               return;
             }
           dest_paths.push_front (dest_path);