Bug 137

Summary:	RPM reports multiple copies of the same package are installed
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	bbaetz
Component:	rpm	Assignee:	Jeff Johnson <jbj>
Status:	CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	5.2
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	1998-12-05 16:15:52 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description bbaetz 1998-11-19 21:10:30 UTC

When upgrading to 5.2 from downloaded rpms, netkit-base
cannot be upgraded, just giving the error message:

error: netkit-base-0.10-13.i386.rpm cannot be installed

This led to multiple versions of netkit-base being
installed, which I could not delete. I tried to install a
5.0 netkit-base rpm with --force to try and get it to
replace the other two, but this didn't work. Now I have:

~# rpm -q netkit-base
netkit-base-0.10-10
netkit-base-0.10-5
netkit-base-0.10-13

~# rpm -e netkit-base
"netkit-base" specifies multiple packages

~# rpm -e netkit-base-0.10-10
~# rpm -e netkit-base-0.10-5
~# rpm -e netkit-base-0.10-13
~# rpm -q netkit-base
netkit-base-0.10-10
netkit-base-0.10-5
netkit-base-0.10-13

The files actually installed from the package correspond to
the 0.10-13 version, but:

~# rpm -Uvh --force netkit-base-0.10-10.rpm
netkit-base
##################################################
error: netkit-base-0.10-10.i386.rpm cannot be installed

However, despite this error message, the installed files now
correspond to the 0.10-10 version.

This was all done with all three netkit-base rpms in the
current directory.

The error doesn't appear to affect the working of ping nad
inetd, containted in the package.

Comment 1 Aleksey Nogin 1998-11-21 03:35:59 UTC

Is it possible it is the same triggers problem as in bug report #103?

Comment 2 bbaetz 1998-11-21 04:17:59 UTC

Yes. Thank you, doing rpm -e --notriggers <packagename> deleted the unwanted packages.
However, I had to do rpm --rebuilddb, or else rpm -q --showtriggers netkit-base gave two lines of error: could not read database record.
I looked for a bug report for RPM before I put this one in, but I only looked under 5.2.

Comment 3 Jeff Johnson 1998-12-05 16:15:59 UTC

Upgrade your rpm to the latest available (2.5.5-5.2 as of this
writing) or you may experience trigger related problems again.

It is possible to have multiple versions of packages installed if
you use --force.

Normally each package can be deinstalled by doing
	rpm -q name
	rpm -e name-version-release
for each package displayed. However, because of a bug in the
trigger code, rpm (2.5 <= version < 2.5.2) needs the "--notriggers"
option to successfully remove certain packages:
	samba, ypbind, bootparamd, Xaw3d-devel, portmap, ypserv

Any/every time that rpm segfaults you should also do
	rpm --rebuilddb

Comment 4 bbaetz 1998-12-06 02:35:59 UTC

~$ rpm -q rpm
rpm-2.5.5-5.2

rpm was the first package I upgraded when trying to go from 5.1 to
5.2.
I was trying to remove netkit-base, which isn't one of the packages
you mentioned, and rpm didn't segfault, it just didn't work. Doing a
--rebuilddb didn't help when the multilple packages were installed.

It _started off_ with two pacakges - I only used force after that. I
had a similar problem about six months ago where sowngrading to an
uninstalled, earlier version, with --force (NOT --oldpackage), and
then upgrading to the wanted version fixed the problem.

As a side issue, and probably a separate bug, rpm -q --triggers foo
gives --triggers: unknown option, whether or not the package foo is
installed or not.

On the other hand, it's fixed now...