If I try to run any of the Software Management Tools from the Control Center, as soon as I click Yes or No on the first dialog that asks if I want to continue, I get the message "Warning Program has exited abnormally".

Thanks in advance for any help.

What version are you using?
Try running rpmdrake as root from a terminal, you should see a bit more info as it tries to access the hdlist of the update sources.
My guess is it's having problems contacting the update source. Again, only a guess.

Thanks for the tip. I've just installed Mandriva 2007.
Oddly enough, just after posting my question it suddenly worked but still has the problem once in a while.

Mandriva 2007.0
[root@smitdesk dr_smit]# rpmdrake
Can't locate auto/urpm/configure.al in @INC (@INC contains: /usr/lib/libDrakX /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/i386-linux /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/i386-linux /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/i386-linux /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.7 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.7/i386-linux /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.6 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl .) at /usr/sbin/rpmdrake line 1507
[root@smitdesk dr_smit]#

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ailing-495524/

it worked!!!

I cannot start the software manager.. "It exits unexpectedly" still........

please help..

please help me...

Hi I have exactly the same problem did u manage to fix it at all?

Cheers.

If I remember correctly 2007 had problems with harddrake on my system too.

I'd suggest that you upgrade to a more recent version. In particular Drakxtools and drakxtools-backend and any deps.

You can easily update your repos from a command line, console.

urpmi...see these help pages for more

A Tute, also from SoS...
http://seerofsouls.com/wiki/Informat...diaSources2007

A page that explains repo types...
http://seerofsouls.com/wiki/Information/PackageRepos

And from the same mob, SoS, here is a nice urpm usage page.
http://seerofsouls.com/wiki/UrpmTools/UrpmiUsage

I re-discovered these pages just recently, and found them useful and well presented.

I do not recommend upgrading kde in total if your not sure, as instructed at SoS, as it can get complex at times.

Cheers, Glenn

The following text is taken from the official errata list for Mandriva Linux 2007.0:

=========================

[edit] Cannot run rpmdrake (Install, Remove & Update Software) from system menus

See also Image:bug_small.png Bug #26383 and update advisory MDKA-2006:055. An error in the menu entry for rpmdrake, the software installation and removal tool, means that it cannot be run from the system menus in Mandriva Linux 2007. Clicking on the menu entry gives the error "Impossible to run unknown 'Install' program". A workaround is to launch the application from the Mandriva Control Center instead. An updated rpmdrake package, rpmdrake-3.19-1.1mdv2007.0, was released through the official update channels on November 29th, 2006 that resolves this issue. Use MandrivaUpdate to fetch and install this update.
[edit] Mandriva Update crashes when installing updates when urpmi.recover is in use

See also Image:bug_small.png Bug #26742 and update advisory MDKA-2006:055. An error in the rpmdrake package can cause Mandriva Update (which is in fact a special case of the rpmdrake application) to crash on systems where the urpmi.recover rollback system introduced in Mandriva Linux 2007 is in use. An updated rpmdrake package, rpmdrake-3.19-1.1mdv2007.0, was released through the official update channels on November 29th, 2006 that resolves this issue. Use MandrivaUpdate to fetch and install this update.
[edit] Package media configuration tool fails to run if urpmi.cfg does not exist

See also Image:bug_small.png Bug #27336 and update advisory MDKA-2006:055. In Mandriva Linux 2007, drakrpm-edit-media, the graphical tool for configuring package media (the repositories from which rpmdrake and urpmi retrieve and install packages), contained a bug which caused it to abort on startup if the file /etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg does not exist. This behaviour is incorrect as the tool is fully capable of creating this file from scratch. A workaround is to define a single media with the command line urpmi.addmedia tool before using drakrpm-edit-media. An updated rpmdrake package, rpmdrake-3.19-1.1mdv2007.0, was released through the official update channels on November 29th, 2006 that resolves this issue. Use MandrivaUpdate to fetch and install this update.
[edit] Problems with non-English languages in rpmdrake

See also Image:bug_small.png Bug #18629, Image:bug_small.png Bug #25130 and Image:bug_small.png Bug #26099 and update advisory MDKA-2006:055. Problems in rpmdrake's support for UTF-8 text encoding can cause it to print error messages containing garbage characters on systems using non-English languages, especially languages which use character sets substantially different from English (for example, Chinese or Hebrew). A separate bug - Image:bug_small.png Bug #26099 - could cause rpmdrake to crash when it encountered errors in UTF-8 encoded text in package metadata. An updated rpmdrake package, rpmdrake-3.19-1.1mdv2007.0, was released through the official update channels on November 29th, 2006 that resolves this issue. Use MandrivaUpdate to fetch and install this update.
[edit] Various problems with updates using rpmdrake in MandrivaUpdate mode

See also Image:bug_small.png Bug #25271, Image:bug_small.png Bug #26135 and Image:bug_small.png Bug #27268 and update advisory MDKA-2006:055. Many users noted several problems with MandrivaUpdate (which is actually just a 'special' version of rpmdrake) in Mandriva Linux 2007. In contrast to previous versions of MandrivaUpdate, there is no 'select all' checkbox, which makes selecting all the updates available a repetitive and tiresome task. When only one update was available, it could not be selected - but the same update could be selected and installed correctly if other updates were also available. Finally, the 'all updates' filter was broken and did not show all available security, bugfix and normal updates.

Possible workarounds for these problems include using old_rpmdrake, available from contrib, which is the previous generation of rpmdrake as used in Mandriva Linux 2006, or using the command line urpmi command. An updated rpmdrake package, rpmdrake-3.19-1.1mdv2007.0, was released through the official update channels on November 29th, 2006 that resolves this issue. Use MandrivaUpdate to fetch and install this update.

=========================

I believe the above covers all issues with rpmdrake, but get a copy of the complete errata list for yourself to read through all the issues pertaining to the 2007.0 release. Many problems can be quickly solved just by reading the errata list.