rpm broken - how to fix?

[kenbrooke]

rpm hangs whenever executed, somewhere deep within checking for dependencies. seems to me either the database is corrupted or rpm itself is broken.

how can I reset things to operate again? can't reinstall the rpm package with rpm not working. also none of the gui's work, since i think they all use rpm behind the scenes.

any help would be appreciated. thanks!

ken
[ken-brooke@starband.net]

[sharth]

I have no idea about rpms, but a suggestion is this. when you run whatever you are running (rpm as a program, i dunno), then copy whatever error code is outputted and post it here. if you run it through a gui, then open an xterm, and then run the program so the errors will be outputted to the xterm.

[JohnT]

Though not a specific answer for your problem, this is some insightful reading with some commands that might be useful in your situation.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-6.0-Manual/install-guide/manual/doc072.html

[Icarus]

Not using Red Hat 8.0 by any chance? I've been noticing that RPM seems to be a bit broken in this release. I have lots of problems with it hanging or returning with no output. I need to remember to check the bug system for this, to see if it is just me or what...a total clean reboot clears it up for me though

[Wallex]

Maybe... just maybe.... rpm --rebuilddb might help? I myself totally broke down my rpm system a few weeks ago (when trying to do anything rpm related, even uninstalling packages), the pc would just get real busy and nothing would get done, and eventually after five minutes the kernel kills the rpm process (and usually it also kills 'randomly' my other running programs). I gave up on rpms since then... I had a need to install one yesterday, so I gave it a try. After rebuilding the database all was fine... give it a go.

[kenbrooke]

Yes, I'm using redhat 8.0. Decided to jump right in and begin with the latest.

The rebuilddb sounds promising & will check out. Should work if the database is corrupted, but rpm is still intact. Got to tread cautiously, being a newbie and still clumsy with the command line shell commands. rmp looks complicated at first glance.

Ken

[Wallex]

Originally posted by kenbrooke
... rmp looks complicated at first glance.

Ken

Rpms do seem complicated... I am not sure how they work, but basicly they are precompiled binary files with 'info' attached to them like their package name, version, dependencies, and type of package (audio, libraries, office, etc). One thing to note is that it isn't such a good idea to mix up programs installed from source and rpm's... once you install a program from source, the rpm database will NOT know you have it installed... and this can lead to very annoying situations (glib is not installed. What do you mean it is not installed, I just installed it five minutes ago! Sorry, if you installed it from source it does not counts). If you plan to install programs from source as well, you might want to check out a program called checkinstall, it seems to solve this small issue.

[kenbrooke]

I'm not doing any *****ious package installation. Just standard rpm's.

Rebuilt the database, and at least now the RedHat update agent is working.

But, what happened to kpackage, which I thought was supposed to be installed with the kdeadmin package. Can't find it anywhere on the system. Don't have any newbie gui tool to look at the adeadmin package itself, but it might not contain kpackage.

Oh well, I can probably live without it, but it would be nice to be able to see what's going on in the way of installed stuff. The RedHat package is alright for the 8.0 distribution stuff, and I guess I can get by with just that.

Ken

[tensai]

Originally posted by mahdi
Not using Red Hat 8.0 by any chance? I've been noticing that RPM seems to be a bit broken in this release. I have lots of problems with it hanging or returning with no output. I need to remember to check the bug system for this, to see if it is just me or what...a total clean reboot clears it up for me though

same here, I have done about 30 installs with rpm since I put on RH 8.0. There were 2 instances where the hash mark indicator showed 100% of package installed, but the command line prompt never came back up. Only a clean reboot fixed the problem.

Still dunno what happened.

[Icarus]

Found it in redhats bugzilla list (http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=74726) Looks like JJ had a new rpm package to try, but doesn't seem to be totally fixed yet. Hopefully they will have this hammered out soon and updated...

[kenbrooke]

Went out to people.redhat.com and downloaded the experimental fix. Figured, what the heck, it can't be more broken than the version I'm using. After three tries, it installed successfully. Then after rebooting (old windows habit, I guess), I tried it out on a small package ... and it hung. Ditto for three more tries.

Am not confident enough yet to do any wholesale file/folder deletion in sensitive areas of the system, so will forego the db deletion and rebuild until the RedHat mavens prevail over this.

Not nearly as bad as some of the problems I've experienced with new Windows releases!

Ken