How can I get rid of "unfinished transaction" warning?

blackplague1347 · #1 4th July 2011, 07:57 PM

Every time I go to install software via yum (on a new F15 install), I get a warning that there are unfinished transactions and that I should run yum-complete-transaction to finish them. Well, I don't want to do that. I had to install F15 a second time today for just this reason...

Today I went to install gnome-tweak-tool via yum and it wouldn't work because packagekit was holding the yum lock. Apparently packagekit runs as a daemon in the background? Is that correct? If so, how do I disable it? It's really quite obnoxious that an application that I didn't even start manually would sit around holding the yum lock, preventing me from doing what I want.

Either way, packagekit wasn't giving up the yum lock any time soon, apparently, so I just killed the process. Now every time I try to install something with yum, I get a warning about unfinished transactions, and a recommendation that I should complete them. I tried to do this earlier today, but after doing so and rebooting, I was greeted with a kernel panic error. Not knowledgeable enough to fix such a thing, I re-installed, and here I am.

So, other than running yum-complete-transaction, how can I get rid of this error message? I really don't want to have to run it and then get another kernel panic and start from scratch again.

Miikka · #2 4th July 2011, 08:23 PM

Code:

yum clear all

Clears cache and, well.. all

blackplague1347 · #3 5th July 2011, 05:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miikka

Code:

yum clear all

Clears cache and, well.. all

Terminal tells me "no such command."

Do I need to install something? I tried "yum clean all", but that didn't work either.

John the train · #4 5th July 2011, 07:29 AM

Were you running the command as user or root? According to ' yum help ' the command for F15 should be ' yum clean ', no option for all.

blackplague1347 · #5 5th July 2011, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John the train

Were you running the command as user or root? According to ' yum help ' the command for F15 should be ' yum clean ', no option for all.

I ran the commands as both user and root. User didn't work with "yum clean all", so I tried as root.
Here's what happened (this time it removed nothing; the first time it removed a couple of things, none of which eliminated the "unfinished transaction" message):

Code:

[root@fedora]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Cleaning repos: adobe-linux-i386 fedora rpmfusion-free rpmfusion-free-updates
              : rpmfusion-nonfree rpmfusion-nonfree-updates updates
Cleaning up Everything
0 delta-package files removed, by presto
[root@fedora]#

And here is simply "yum clean":

Code:

[root@fedora]# yum clean
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
Error: clean requires an option: headers, packages, metadata, dbcache, plugins, expire-cache, rpmdb, all
Cleaning repos: adobe-linux-i386 fedora rpmfusion-free rpmfusion-free-updates
              : rpmfusion-nonfree rpmfusion-nonfree-updates updates
[root@fedora]#

Smoking Tux · #6 5th July 2011, 10:34 AM

Quote:

that I should run yum-complete-transaction to finish them. Well, I don't want to do that

Umm...yum is giving you an advice how to solve the problem and you're thinking a 'yum clean *' would simply 'wipe' the issue...?

Regarding to your packagekit problem.. If you're using gnome3 search in dconf-editor for org -> gnome -> settings-daemon -> plugins -> updates and disable the value 'active'.

---------- Post added at 11:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:36 AM ----------

Quote:

And here is simply "yum clean"

That's a normal behaviour. You have to tell yum 'what' should be cleaned.
See:

Code:

man yum

for further information..

***DBelton*** · #7 5th July 2011, 02:05 PM

you will have to clean up the yum transaction journals before yum (or packagekit) will be able to function properly.

With it being stuck in the middle of a transaction, if packages got updated, you will have duplicates until the old packages are cleaned up.

Your best option is to allow yum to go ahead and finish the transaction, but if you really want to toss things out and leave a transaction only half finished, there is a way to clear the transaction journals, but you will probably end up with duplicate packages as a result.

To have it clean up the transaction journals without actually completeing the transaction:

Code:

yum-complete-transaction --cleanup-only

I would recommend to cleanup duplicate packages after going this route, though..

Code:

package-cleanup --cleandupes

I do have to say that you are risking leaving your system in an unknown and possibly unstable state by just clearing the transaction journal, though. For example, if a package got updated, but a dependency did not get update, then that package may not even work.

You say that you got a kernel panic from doing the same exact update? If you know what caused the kernel panic, you could exclude just the problem package and still allow yum-complete-transaction to run and update the rest of your system.

Code:

yum-complete-transaction --exclude=package name