Fwd: yum and "rpm -U" not working

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Margaret wrote:
>> From: Margaret Doll <Margaret_Doll at brown.edu>
>> Date: January 21, 2010 10:25:47 AM EST
>>
>> We are running 2.6.18-128.1.6.el5xen on our server.
>>
>> Recently "yum update", "yum localinstall TIV*.rpm --nogpgcheck",
>> and versions of "rpm -U xterm" hang.  yum hangs up on the transition
>> check after all the packages have been downloaded.  "rpm -U" tells
>> me which dependencies that I need, but hangs if I include the
>> dependencies in the list of programs to upgrade.
>>
>> "rpm --rebuildbd" seems to work.
>>
>> How do I start debugging this problem?

Is there any clue in /var/log/yum.log?
>
> I discovered that the rpm database may not be working correctly.
>
> "rpm -qa kernel" brings back nothing
>
> rpm -qa | grep kernel
> kernel-xen-2.6.18-128.1.6.el5
<snip>
That actually makes sense - you don't have the plain kernel on the system.
If you did rpm -qi kernel-xen, you'd get an answer.

        mark