Hello,
I recently installed Fedora Core 8, everything was fine and then I decided to update the system to install more rpms. After the install, pirut crashed, and gave an error message:

Component: pirut
Summary: TBc0c9275d config.py:680:_getsysver:TypeError: rpmdb open failed

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 476, in <module>
main()
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 469, in main
pm = PackageManager(options.config, options.onlyrepo)
File "/usr/sbin/pirut", line 63, in __init__
GraphicalYumBase.__init__(self, False, config)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/pirut/__init__.py", line 129, in __init__
plugin_types=(yum.plugins.TYPE_CORE,))
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 113, in doConfigSetup
errorlevel=errorlevel)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 159, in _getConfig
self._conf = config.readMainConfig(startupconf)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 613, in readMainConfig
yumvars['releasever'] = _getsysver(startupconf.installroot, startupconf.distroverpkg)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 680, in _getsysver
idx = ts.dbMatch('provides', distroverpkg)
TypeError: rpmdb open failed

Local variables in innermost frame:
installroot: /
ts: <rpmUtils.transaction.TransactionWrapper instance at 0x9a37eac>
distroverpkg: redhat-release

I tried to run rpm, and rpm gave me the following error:

rpmdb: /var/lib/rpm/Packages: file size not a multiple of the pagesize
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Invalid argument (22)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm

I thought then that rpm database became corrupted. So I tried removing the Packages database file ( renamed it to different file name ) and ran rpmdb --initdb, rpmdb --rebuilddb ( I am guessing here, and trying to avoid a re-install. )

I tried running yum clean all and got the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in <module>
yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 85, in main
base.getOptionsConfig(args)
File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 154, in getOptionsConfig
disabled_plugins=opts.disableplugins)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 159, in _getConfig
self._conf = config.readMainConfig(startupconf)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 613, in readMainConfig
yumvars['releasever'] = _getsysver(startupconf.installroot, startupconf.distroverpkg)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 686, in _getsysver
hdr = idx.next()
StopIteration

So is there hope of recovering from this, or should I go ahead and re-install ?
Thanks.

I recently tried changing the code in: /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/config.py (line 686)
(FROM)
~~
else:
hdr = idx.next()
releasever = hdr['version']
del hdr
~~
(TO)

~~
else:
#hdr = idx.next()
#releasever = hdr['version']
#del hdr
releasever='8'
~~
i.e., commented out the line that was causing the python script to crash,
and then hardcoding the releasever to be 8.
I can now run yum and did a "clean all".
This now allows me to run pirut, but the thing is, it doesn't
know about any of the installed packages. I guess the rpm Package database is unusable at this point.

So is there a way for recovering information regarding all software
packages actually installed on the system ?