Description of problem: I'm having trouble getting a package to run, so I decided to try to delete everything related to it (except the RPM file) and start over. But this seems to have thoroughly confused rpm. "rpm -i" said "package is already installed", even though "rpm -V" listed a ton of files missing. So I tried "rpm -F" -- that produced no output at all, but now "rpm -V" says "package is not installed" even though "rpm -i" still says "package is already installed!" Then I tried rpm -i --replacefiles --replacepkgs, but this seems to have hung (but that may be a different bug). Finally, I really don't want to have to muck around on the command-line at all. The GUI wrapper for rpm should give me some options, rather than just saying "This package is already installed" and forcing me to fire up terminal to figure out what the heck is going on. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): rpm 4.1 How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. install a package 2. delete its files 3. attempt to install, verify, or freshen (as described above) Actual results: rpm claims it is not installed in "verify" mode, but claims it's already installed in "install" mode. Expected results: rpm should make up its mind whether the damn thing is installed or not. Ideally, "rpm -i" would always make the package work, installing whatever files needed to be installed. Additional info:
rpm manages packages, not files, so yes the package is installed (meaning entry in database) even if all the files are removed (as detected by --verify). Reinstall the package using --force if you wish to replace the files. BTW, from the command line, you should be using -Uvh, not -ivh, for eveything but kernel packages.