rpmbuild -ta option no longer works

[aditigaur4]

rpmbuild -ta <tarball> complains that it fails to find the spec file. The spec file exists in the top of the unpacked directory.

root [ / ]# rpmbuild -ta slurm-24.05.4.tar.bz2
error: Failed to read spec file from slurm-24.05.4.tar.bz2

The slurm tarball in this case does have the spec file at the top:

root [ / ]# tar -xvf slurm-24.05.4.tar.bz2 | grep slurm.spec
slurm-24.05.4/slurm.spec
root [ / ]#

This is rpmbuild version 4.17 but the problem exists in 4.18 as well. Note this is mariner OS.

root [ / ]# cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Common Base Linux Mariner"
VERSION="2.0.20241029"
ID=mariner
VERSION_ID="2.0"
PRETTY_NAME="CBL-Mariner/Linux"
ANSI_COLOR="1;34"
HOME_URL="https://aka.ms/cbl-mariner"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://aka.ms/cbl-mariner"
SUPPORT_URL="https://aka.ms/cbl-mariner"

This same command works in rpmbuild version 4.16:

[root@341759f80574 /]# rpmbuild -ta slurm-24.05.4.tar.bz2
warning: Macro expanded in comment on line 22: %_prefix path            install path for commands, libraries, etc.

warning: Macro expanded in comment on line 209: %define _unpackaged_files_terminate_build      0

[root@341759f80574 /]# rpmbuild --version
RPM version 4.16.1.3

I did not notice any changes to this specific flag in the release notes, any help on this would be greatly appreciated,
Thank you!