rpm database corrupted, how to recover?

[Torrey Hoffman]

While installing some rpms from FreshRPMs.net on my system, rpm
segfaulted.  It seems to have corrupted the database in the process, and
now all rpm commands hang.

How can I recover without reinstalling Fedora?

Here's what it looks like when it hangs:

[root at moria rpm]# rpm -v -v --rebuilddb
D: rebuilding database /var/lib/rpm into /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2274
D: creating directory /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2274
D: opening old database with dbapi 3
D: opening  db environment /var/lib/rpm/Packages joinenv
D: opening  db index       /var/lib/rpm/Packages rdonly mode=0x0

(Nothing happens for a long time.  Killed with -9)

So I moved /var/lib/rpm/Packages to /var/lib/rpm/Packages.corrupt
and then:

[root at moria rpm]# rpm -v -v --rebuilddb
D: rebuilding database /var/lib/rpm into /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2334
D: creating directory /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2334
D: opening old database with dbapi 3
D: opening  db environment /var/lib/rpm/Packages joinenv
D: opening  db index       /var/lib/rpm/Packages create mode=0x0
D: locked   db index       /var/lib/rpm/Packages
D: opening new database with dbapi 3
D: opening  db environment /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2334/Packages
create:mpool
D: opening  db index       /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2334/Packages create
mode=0x42
D: closed   db index       /var/lib/rpm/Packages
D: closed   db environment /var/lib/rpm/Packages
D: closed   db index       /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2334/Packages
D: closed   db environment /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2334/Packages
D: removing directory /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.2334

But the resulting Packages list is NOT actually rebuilt, it is empty!

[root at moria rpm]# ll Packages*

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        12288 Nov 12 13:19 Packages
-rw-r--r--    1 rpm      rpm      58630144 Nov 12 12:50 Packages.corrupt

This has been filed in Bugzilla as bug #109913.

-- 
Torrey Hoffman <thoffman at arnor.net>