[Yum] Fed8 to Fed9 update broke yum but I need it to fix the install

[David Timms]

Stargazer wrote:
> I just want to do a yum update but yum itself is broken. Heres what I get:
> 
> [root at tiger ~]# yum
> error: no dbpath has been set
> error: cannot open Packages database in /%{_dbpath}
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>  File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in <module>
>    yummain.user_main(sys.argv[1:], exit_code=True)
>  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 241, in user_main
>    errcode = main(args)
>  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 96, in main
>    base.getOptionsConfig(args)
>  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 182, in getOptionsConfig
>    disabled_plugins=self.optparser._splitArg(opts.disableplugins))
>  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 180, in 
> _getConfig
>    self._conf = config.readMainConfig(startupconf)
>  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 735, in 
> readMainConfig
>    yumvars['releasever'] = _getsysver(startupconf.installroot, 
> startupconf.distroverpkg)
>  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 802, in 
> _getsysver
>    idx = ts.dbMatch('provides', distroverpkg)
> TypeError: rpmdb open failed
> 
> This worked fine in Fed 8. Has anyone seen this before or got any 
> suggestions please? Thanks
Hi Stargazer ;)

I would suggest that perhaps it is rpm that isn't working. Try an rpm 
verify {that I think will fail}:
# rpm -V rpm yum

DaveT.