What to do if the "/scripts/find_and_fix_rpm_issues" command timeouts or doesn't respond?

Question

What to do if the "/scripts/find_and_fix_rpm_issues" command timeouts or doesn't respond?

Example: (Command + output)

# /scripts/find_and_fix_rpm_issues
Checking that the RPM DB is OK...
(No more output)

Is there anything you can do to get the script to function again?

Answer

There are a couple of issues that can cause it.

YUM tasks:

There could be an ongoing YUM transaction happening. This can cause YUM to lock until the transaction is complete. You may see output from the command like this to indicate a lock is present.

Example:

# /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/find_and_fix_rpm_issues
Waiting for 1 related locks to clear for /usr/bin/rpm

You could wait for the lock to clear.

Or you may want to search for 'yum' processes that are currently running.

# ps awux | grep -i yum

You may need to kill any 'yum' process if it is running for too long. That would remove the yum lock.

RPMs, too many processes:

This issue may also be caused by multiple copies of 'rpm' running simultaneously. If you view the process list through the command line, you will see something similar in response to the next command.

Example from test server:

# ps awux | grep rpm
root      7890  0.0  0.0  70848  3904 ?        S    10:15  0:00 /usr/bin/rpm -q --nodigest --nosignature --queryformat %{NAME} %{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n -a kernelcare
root    12529  0.0  0.0  70848  1824 ?        S    Nov28  0:00 /usr/bin/rpm -q --nodigest --nosignature --queryformat %{NAME} %{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n -a kernelcare
root    13645  0.0  0.0  70848  652 ?        S    Oct19  0:00 /usr/bin/rpm -q --nodigest --nosignature --queryformat %{NAME} %{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n -a kernelcare
root    13926  0.0  0.0  70852  3920 pts/0    S    11:33  0:00 /bin/rpm -q --nosignature --nodigest glibc
root    14314  0.0  0.0  70848  944 ?        S    Nov14  0:00 /usr/bin/rpm -q --nodigest --nosignature --queryformat %{NAME} %{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n -a kernelcare
root    14434  0.0  0.0  70852  3928 pts/0    S    11:36  0:00 /bin/rpm -q --nosignature --nodigest glibc
root    14560  0.0  0.0  70852  3916 ?        SN  11:38  0:00 /bin/rpm -qa --nodigest --nosignature --queryformat %{NAME}\t%{VERSION}\t%{RELEASE}\t%{VENDOR}\t%{INSTALLTIME}\t%{RSAHEADER:pgpsig}\n
root    14561  0.0  0.0  70852  3912 ?        SN  11:38  0:00 /bin/rpm -qa --nodigest --nosignature --queryformat %{NAME}\t%{VERSION}\t%{RELEASE}\t%{VENDOR}\t%{INSTALLTIME}\t%{RSAHEADER:pgpsig}\n
root    14562  0.0  0.0  70852  3920 ?        SN  11:38  0:00 /bin/rpm -qa --nodigest --nosignature --queryformat %{NAME}\t%{VERSION}\t%{RELEASE}\t%{VENDOR}\t%{INSTALLTIME}\t%{RSAHEADER:pgpsig}\n
root    15732  0.0  0.0  70852  3920 pts/0    S    11:48  0:00 /bin/rpm -q --nosignature --nodigest glibc
root    16080  0.0  0.0  70852  3924 pts/0    S    11:51  0:00 /bin/rpm -q --nosignature --nodigest glibc
root    16102  0.0  0.0 174572  4024 pts/0    S+  11:51  0:00 rpm -qa

The process 'rpm' depends on locking the RPM database. Multiple copies running will not complete, as they cannot all control the lock file.

If you find multiple copies of 'rpm' running at the same time, we recommend finding and killing those 'rpm' processes until they are all gone. 

*** If you use the following command to 'kill' the process, please use caution. ***

Command:

kill -9 `ps awux | grep -v grep rpm | awk ' { print $2 } ' | xargs`

Once those 'rpm' are dead, you should be able to run the '/scripts/find_and_fix_rpm_issues' script successfully.

The command should provide output like so:

# /scripts/find_and_fix_rpm_issues
Checking that the RPM DB is OK...
glibc-2.17-317.el7.x86_64
OK: RPM DB is responding to queries
Testing if rpm_is_working RPM is installed
package rpm_is_working is not installed
Testing if it's possible to install a simple RPM
Preparing... ########################################
Updating / installing...
rpm_is_working-1.0-0 ########################################