Cp leads to "error processing extended attributes: Argument list too long"

Question

With certain PDF files to which I've added a lot of extended attributes (using Skim.app, a PDF reader/annotator which stores its notes in extended attributes), Chronosync and Finder drag-drops don't preserve extended attributes like they're supposed to (i.e. the notes aren't viewable on copies of the document). When I use cp to do they copying, the following message appears in system.log:
error processing extended attributes: Argument list too long
Googling it returns no results

Answer 1

Hi Derick,
error processing extended attributes: Argument list too long
I have no idea why you get this error when copying a file...
There is a max size for each extended attribute (about 3800bytes), and if I try to create (by using a simple C program) an attribute larger than this limit then I get "Argument list too long" error. But in your case you are trying to make a copy of an existing PDF file whose extended attributes should be smaller than the limit, of course (Skim has no magical power of creating an attribute larger than the limit; if the note is too large then I guess Skim just splits the note into two or more attributes).
Q1: do you get the error only if you (try to) copy a PDF file with large notes? or you also get the error for a file with only small notes? How about a PDF file with many small notes?
Q2: are you copying the PDF file to external volumes? If so, are you sure it is HFS+? What happens if you copy the PDF file to the same internal disk volume, for example
cp your.pdf tmp.pdf
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