How To Solve “Error: rpmdb open failed” Error In CentOS

Today, I was testing Nginx web server in a CentOS 7 VM. Unfortunately, the power has gone in the middle of the update process. Since I don't have a UPS, my host system went down immediately. After few minutes, the power came, and I turned on the VM again and started the upgrade process. When I run the "yum update" command, I got this error message:

error: rpmdb: BDB0113 Thread/process 2196/139984719730496 failed: BDB1507 Thread died in Berkeley DB library
error: db5 error(-30973) from dbenv->failchk: BDB0087 DB_RUNRECOVERY: Fatal error, run database recovery
error: cannot open Packages index using db5 - (-30973)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
CRITICAL:yum.main:

Error: rpmdb open failed

It seemes like YUM broke down. I couldn't run any yum command. I haven't faced this error before, and I didn't know what to do. So, I headed over to the CentOS forum hoping to find a suitable solution to fix this issue. After a few searches over the forum, luckily I found a workaround. If you ever got into this problem, look nowhere and just do the following steps.

First backup the rpm database using command as root user:

# mv /var/lib/rpm/__db* /tmp

Then, run the following command:

# yum clean all

Now, run the update again:

# yum update
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Cleaning repos: base epel extras updates
Cleaning up everything
Cleaning up list of fastest mirrors
[root@server ~]# yum update
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
base | 3.6 kB 00:00 
epel/x86_64/metalink | 5.0 kB 00:00 
epel | 4.3 kB 00:00 
extras | 3.4 kB 00:00 
updates | 3.4 kB 00:00 
(1/7): base/7/x86_64/group_gz | 155 kB 00:02 
(2/7): epel/x86_64/group_gz | 170 kB 00:04 
(3/7): extras/7/x86_64/primary_db | 191 kB 00:12 
(4/7): epel/x86_64/updateinfo | 809 kB 00:21 
(5/7): base/7/x86_64/primary_db | 5.6 MB 00:26 
(6/7): epel/x86_64/primary_db | 4.8 MB 00:46 
(7/7): updates/7/x86_64/primary_db | 7.8 MB 00:50 
Determining fastest mirrors
 * base: mirror.ehost.vn
 * epel: repo.ugm.ac.id
 * extras: mirror.ehost.vn
 * updates: mirror.dhakacom.com
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package NetworkManager.x86_64 1:1.4.0-19.el7_3 will be updated
---> Package NetworkManager.x86_64 1:1.4.0-20.el7_3 will be an update
---> Package NetworkManager-adsl.x86_64 1:1.4.0-19.el7_3 will be updated
[...]
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
 Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 kernel x86_64 3.10.0-514.26.2.el7 updates 37 M
 python2-libcomps x86_64 0.1.8-3.el7 epel 46 k
 replacing python-libcomps.x86_64 0.1.6-13.el7
Updating:
 NetworkManager x86_64 1:1.4.0-20.el7_3 updates 2.5 M
 NetworkManager-adsl x86_64 1:1.4.0-20.el7_3 updates 146 k
 NetworkManager-bluetooth x86_64 1:1.4.0-20.el7_3 updates 165 k
 NetworkManager-glib x86_64 1:1.4.0-20.el7_3 updates 385 k
 NetworkManager-libnm x86_64 1:1.4.0-20.el7_3 updates 443 k
 NetworkManager-team x86_64 1:1.4.0-20.el7_3 updates 147 k
 python-perf x86_64 3.10.0-514.26.2.el7 updates 4.0 M
 sudo x86_64 1.8.6p7-23.el7_3 updates 735 k
 systemd x86_64 219-30.el7_3.9 updates 5.2 M
 systemd-libs x86_64 219-30.el7_3.9 updates 369 k
 systemd-sysv x86_64 219-30.el7_3.9 updates 64 k
 tuned noarch 2.7.1-3.el7_3.2 updates 210 k
 xfsprogs x86_64 4.5.0-10.el7_3 updates 895 k
Removing:
 kernel x86_64 3.10.0-123.el7 @anaconda 127 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install 2 Packages
Upgrade 46 Packages
Remove 1 Package

Total download size: 84 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y

I type y to continue the update. Voila! Everything is worked as expected.

Finally, I cleaned the backup using command:

# rm -i /tmp/__db*

And, that's all for now. Hope this helps.

Related read:

• [Solved] - "error: rpmdbNextIterator: skipping" In Fedora Linux