RPM stopped working

[Leon Stringer]

Hi,

RPM has suddenly stopped working. If I try to install a package at the
command line the process never completes i.e. I hit return and nothing
else happens and I eventually have to kill it.

I thought the problem could be the database but I can't rebuild it. I
tried with the debugging options and just get:

# rpm --rebuilddb -vv
D: rebuilding database /var/lib/rpm into /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.4560
D: creating directory /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.4560
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

and that's it, no disk activity, no response after half an hour.

Can anyone suggest how I might fix or troubleshoot this?

(FC4t3 with up to date packages.)

Leon...