Bash script stops execution in the middle of the script without any error

I have this simple bash script that gets a copy from my dev server:

#!/bin/sh
DATE=`date +%Y-%m-%d_%H%M.开发者_StackOverflow中文版%S`
BASEDIR="/var/www/db"
RELEASEDIR="$DATE";
RELEASEDIRFULL="$BASEDIR/releases/$RELEASEDIR"
mkdir -p "$RELEASEDIRFULL"
echo "Chdir to \"$RELEASEDIRFULL\""
cd "$RELEASEDIRFULL"
echo "Getting copy from dev"
ssh dev.example.tld "cd /tmp; cd /sites/db; tar -zcvp --exclude data --exclude scripts -f - *" | tar zxvpf -
ln -s /var/www/db/data data
ln -s /var/www/db/scripts scripts
cd $BASEDIR
rm htdocs; ln -s releases/$RELEASEDIR htdocs

Recently it stopped working properly with no apparent reason. It gets to the ssh line, executes it fine (files appear on live server) but does not proceed with ln commands. If I comment the ssh line out, ln lines will get executed properly.

UPDATE: I noticed that when I'm logged on as www-data and start the script, it completes as expected, without errors.

No time to check up the man page, but looks like your tar input is - * - all files + stdin? Are you meaning -- for suspension of further argument processing (if tar supports that)