Problems with Yum: error: unrecognized db option: "usecursors" ignored.

griffey · 04-21-2011, 09:24 AM

Hi folks.

I noticed one of the systems I support was showing up in RHN as not having been updated in a while, so I logged in to take a look, and found that something is messed up with yum (?).

Code:

[root@server ~]# yum update
error: dbiOpen: dbapi 1 not available
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
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 254, in user_main
    errcode = main(args)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 88, in main
    base.getOptionsConfig(args)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 192, in getOptionsConfig
    self.conf
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 778, in <lambda>
    conf = property(fget=lambda self: self._getConfig(),
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 256, in _getConfig
    startupconf = config.readStartupConfig(fn, root)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 835, in readStartupConfig
    startupconf.releasever = _getsysver(startupconf.installroot, startupconf.distroverpkg)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 968, in _getsysver
    idx = ts.dbMatch('provides', distroverpkg)
_rpm.error: rpmdb open failed

So I tried the following:

Code:

rm /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rpm -vv --rebuilddb

Now the error is even goofier:

Code:

[root@server rpm]# yum update
error: unrecognized db option: "usecursors" ignored.
error: unrecognized db option: "usecursors" ignored.
error: unrecognized db option: "usecursors" ignored.
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 254, in user_main
    errcode = main(args)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 88, in main
    base.getOptionsConfig(args)
  File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 192, in getOptionsConfig
    self.conf
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 778, in <lambda>
    conf = property(fget=lambda self: self._getConfig(),
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 256, in _getConfig
    startupconf = config.readStartupConfig(fn, root)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 835, in readStartupConfig
    startupconf.releasever = _getsysver(startupconf.installroot, startupconf.distroverpkg)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/yum/config.py", line 983, in _getsysver
    hdr = idx.next()
StopIteration

If I put that line about "usecursors" into Google along with the word yum I don't even get any results returned.

df -h shows that / is about 96% full, but it still has at least 2 gigs of free space, so while I was guessing at first that might be an issue, I wouldn't think yum would need more than 2 gigs of space to work with, right?

Code:

yum clean all

also blows up.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

I may need to go knock a grad student upside the head--I just reformatted this machine like two months ago for them...

Thanks!

G.--

RockDoctor · 04-22-2011, 09:33 AM

Whenever yum craps out because of the database, I generally rebuild the rpm database and try again. SOmetimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I figure it shouldn't do any harm

griffey · 04-26-2011, 10:36 AM

Thanks for your reply.

Isn't that what I did with:

Code:

rm /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rpm -vv --rebuilddb

Or is there something else I need to do?

Thanks!

Mike

RockDoctor · 04-26-2011, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by griffey

Thanks for your reply.

Isn't that what I did with:

Code:

rm /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rpm -vv --rebuilddb

Or is there something else I need to do?

Thanks!

Mike

Yeah, I suspect you're right. The rebuilddb option doesn't show up in the man page for my version of rpm (rpm-4.9.0-6.fc15.x86_64), even though it apparently works, so I've been using the rpmdb command when I need to rebuild the database.

Sorry I wasn't able to help

griffey · 04-28-2011, 09:37 AM

Don't sweat it--thanks for trying. It doesn't help much when one googles "error: unrecognized db option: usecursors ignored" and it returns 8 hits and all of them are links to my question about it. Sigh. I'm going to come at this from a different angle...

RockDoctor · 04-28-2011, 09:46 AM

Is rpm working properly? The options I usually try are:

Code:

rpm -ivh <some-rpm-file>
rpm -e <some-rpm-file>
rpm -qi <some-rpm-file>
rpm -ql <some-rpm-file>
rpm -qa --last

I've encountered situations where parts of rpm are broken, which can break yum.

griffey · 04-28-2011, 10:03 AM

Yeah, something is screwed up with rpm.

rpm -qa returns *nothing*.

Ugh. And now I just deleted the __db* files again and did "rpm -vv --rebuilddb" and it didn't create new ones (I also tried "rpmdb --rebuilddb" with the same results).

I have a feeling I'm just going to blow away this box and start from scratch...

G.--

John VV · 04-28-2011, 03:37 PM

from fedora and cent , now SL
the rebuilddb dose not allways do the trick

there are two ways if one errors then the second most of the time works .It is a matter of the order

Code:

su -
yum clean all
rpm --rebuilddb 
yum update

the second is just in a different order

Code:

su -
rpm --rebuilddb 
yum clean all
yum update

and if that dose not do it ?
the error is showing a python issue

Quote:

File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 192, in getOptionsConfig

rhel,cent,and fedora are VERY dependent on the version of python in the BASE REPO !!!
if a different version gets installed then "all kinds of "bleeped" can rain down "
so check the version of python that is installed against the RHN version

griffey · 04-28-2011, 03:55 PM

Thanks for this reply too, John. As I mentioned in the semi-related thread, I'm going to just blow this thing away and start from scratch. It's not my server, and shouldn't technically even be my problem.

Take care.

G.--