yum and "rpm -U" not working

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

>
> On Jan 21, 2010, at 11:01 AM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>
>> 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?
<snip>
> The kernel on which the system is running is xen, but the problem with
> rpm and yum still exists.

Ok, so is there anything in the yum.log, from when it failed? Have you
tried rpm -Uvh xterm, to see if it said anything? Oh - and try rpm -Uvvh -
I thought I remembered this, and yep, the man page sayeth "Print lots of
ugly debugging information".

Let us know what happens if you try that.

         mark