RHEL 5 rhn_check output explosion and failure

[Jonathan Pool]

Since I installed RHEL 5, rhn_check no longer behaves normally.

1. Its output includes duplicates of every line. At every step, the number
of duplicates increases by 1. This causes the output to become tens of
thousands of lines long.

2. After its execution is completed, RHN reports that the pending errata
remain unapplied.

I am appending a fragment of an rhn_check output, from the start of the
process when only a few duplicates of each line appear:

Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Package gnupg - 1.4.5-12.i386 already installed and latest version
Package gnupg - 1.4.5-12.i386 already installed and latest version
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Package tzdata - 2006m-2.fc6.noarch already installed and latest version
Package tzdata - 2006m-2.fc6.noarch already installed and latest version
Package tzdata - 2006m-2.fc6.noarch already installed and latest version
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Package emacs-leim - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs-leim - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs-leim - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs-leim - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs-common - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs-common - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs-common - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Package emacs-common - 21.4-17.i386 already installed and latest version
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin