I was going to use yum to update a software package, and I was confronted with the following error:

Component: Software Manager
Summary: TB9f78d0ec main.py:244:executeatabaseError: database disk image is malformed

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 363, in ?
main()
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 359, in main
pm.run()
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 286, in run
self.doRefresh()
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 297, in doRefresh
self.reposSetup(pbar)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/pirut/__init__.py", line 151, in reposSetup
self.doSackSetup()
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 294, in doSackSetup
self.pkgSack.excludeArchs(archlist)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/sqlitesack.py", line 496, in excludeArchs
cur.execute(querystring)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/sqlite/main.py", line 244, in execute
self.rs = self.con.db.execute(SQL)
DatabaseError: database disk image is malformed

Local variables in innermost frame:
self: <sqlite.main.Cursor instance at 0xb6d8ae8c>
parms: ()
SQL: select * from packages WHERE arch != "i686" AND arch != "i586" AND arch != "i486" AND arch != "i386" AND arch != "noarch"

What is the cause of this, and how do I fix it? Thanks.

Sometimes when you do a ctrl + c , while yum is setting up the install processes, you get such wierd errors. Usually a restart is enough. If not try "yum clean all" as root. Try it and let me know.