I have an uncomfortable feeling that I have now either corrupted or destroyed my RPM database, and hope I'm mistaken...

The other evening, I was trying to install a set of Multisync RPMs. I can't quite remember at what point things started going pear-shaped, but ISTR trying to uninstall a mistaken RPM and the terminal window froze. I also fired up Synaptic, trying to locate any "multisync" packages there, and it bombed out when I tried searching.

I've read here that it sometimes helps to rebuild the RPM database with

but when I try that (as root), it gives me this error:

I also tried what this post suggested, but it didn't seem to make any difference. At least Synaptic still seems to know what packages I have installed, so I guess something is still working...

Anyone know how I might be able to rescue the situation?

Many thanks,
Tim

I'd guess that another process is using the rpm database. You can't rebuild it while something is using it. Run ps -aux | more and see if you can find any processes that are using rpm. If you can't I'd just reboot and then do this as root:

rm -f /var/lib/rpm/db__*
rpm --rebuilddb

I am running MDK 10 CE and would like to rebuild my rpm database but I do not have the db directorys under
/var/lib/rpm

I do not have any of those db directorys??

MB

I'm not sure if they are in a different location in Mandrake. I'm not familiar with The Drake.