yum-complete-transaction should be run??? Many apps to be erased....

[wombat53]

Sometimes when running yum to add a package I get a message saying that there are incomplete transactions and suggests running "yum-complete-transaction " program.
When I do this I get something that starts like this:
--> Running transaction check
---> Package MAKEDEV.i386 0:3.23-4 set to be erased
---> Package NetworkManager-gnome.i386 1:0.7.0-0.9.3.svn3623.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package PolicyKit.i386 0:0.8-2.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package a2ps.i386 0:4.13b-71.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package acl.i386 0:2.2.47-1.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package alsa-lib.i386 0:1.0.16-3.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package alsa-utils.i386 0:1.0.16-2.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package audit.i386 0:1.7.2-6.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package audit-libs.i386 0:1.7.2-6.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package audit-libs-python.i386 0:1.7.2-6.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package authconfig.i386 0:5.4.2-1.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package authconfig-gtk.i386 0:5.4.2-1.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package bittorrent.noarch 0:4.4.0-6.fc9 set to be erased
---> Package bluez-gnome.i386 0:0.25-1.fc9 set to be erased
etc...........................
I don't think I want all these (essential?) packages erased. How can I remove this yum incomplete transaction status?
Thanks
George

[JonathanR]

yum-complete-transaction is a program which finds incomplete or aborted yum transactions on a system and attempts to complete them. It looks at the transaction-all* and transaction-done* files which can normally be found in /var/lib/yum if a yum transaction aborted in the middle of execution.

If it finds more than one unfinished transaction it will attempt to complete the most recent one first. You can run it more than once to clean up all unfinished transactions.

http://linux.die.net/man/8/yum-complete-transaction

[wombat53]

Jonathan - but thing is, I don't think I want all these packages removed!!!!! There is a --cleanup-only option to this command, but I'm unwilling to use it until I understand it better.....
" --cleanup-only
Only clean up only transaction journal files and exit."
What does this mean, exactly?
wombat53

[RahulSundaram]

Hi,

As you might already know, RPM uses a database to keep track of package information. When you run yum, it creates a transaction journal to keep track of it's status and it gets automatically removed if completed normally. If you quit yum in the middle of a operation, it will abort and the journal will tell yum what to do to complete it. In your case, you can just cleanup the journal and move on. Yum normally wouldn't ask to remove packages to complete a transaction and that looks like it might be a bug. You might want to file a bug report in http://bugzilla.redhat.com about this before you run a cleanup.

[wombat53]

Rahul- so then, are you suggesting I simply run it with the --cleanup-only option and this will do as it says, remove the "hanging" journal entries, and I will no longer be prompted again to execute the tum-complete-transaction program, that everything will be "resolved", so to speak?
Thanks
George

[RahulSundaram]

Hi,

Correct but it looks like a bug in yum-complete-transaction and I would prefer you file a bug report and attach the journal files in the bug report before you run the cleanup option.

If you want to confirm that your repository is ok, you can package-cleanup --problems as well

[wombat53]

Rahul - is "package-cleanup --problems " to be run before, after, instead of, or in addition to the yum-complete-transaction --cleanup only? If in addition to, in what sequence.
Again, thanks

George

[RahulSundaram]

First run the yum complete transaction command, followed up package-cleanup

[wombat53]

Rahul - thanks. Let me try this later today and report back.
George

[wombat53]

Rahul: Is "package-cleanup --problems" the entire command I run (with no other options)?
George

[RahulSundaram]

Hi,

Yes. Why do you ask and confirm so many times. Just try it out.

[AdamW]

Rahul: when I was updating Rawhide the other day, the udev update killed GNOME, so the yum process died halfway through. It was left in a similar situation - yum-complete-transaction wanted to 'erase' a bunch of packages. I went ahead and let it, and everything worked.

It's not actually removing the packages, just the duplicate entries in the RPM database. When yum does an update, it updates every package first, then removes all the old versions from the database as the final step. If the yum process dies for some reason before this final step is done, you'll wind up with duplicate entries for all the upgraded packages in the RPM database. yum-complete-transaction should just clean up the dupe entries, and the correct versions of the packages won't actually be removed.

OP: I bet if you do:

rpm -q NetworkManager-gnome

(for example - any package on the list would be fine), you'll see there's two versions installed, and the one yum-complete-transaction wants to 'erase' is the older one. In this case, letting it run *should* be fine (though I disclaim all responsibility if it eats your puppy :>)

[RahulSundaram]

Hi,

Ah, well there is a simple check to confirm this theory. Either run rpm on one of the packages being listed are about to be removed by yum or run package-cleanup --dupes and check the listing first.

[wombat53]

I followed both your suggestions (Adma and Rahul) and yum-complete-transaction seemed to run fine - alone - (after first running the --cleanup-only option before that).
AT Rahul's suggestion I later ran package-cleanup --dupes and see a report like this:
bittorrent-4.4.0-6.fc9.noarch
bittorrent-4.4.0-7.fc9.noarch
fetchmail-6.3.8-7.fc9.i386
fetchmail-6.3.8-6.fc9.i386
liberation-fonts-1.04-1.fc9.noarch
liberation-fonts-1.0-4.fc9.noarch etc.........................
So it appears that rpm has a record of both old and newer versions in its books. Is there away to "clean up it's book-keeping", so there is only one occurrence of each package in rpm's "books"?
George

[leigh123linux]

Try

su
package-cleanup --cleandupes