Repair the RPM database
I had a problem with running a yum update on some package. The process
would sleep indefinitely. A clue that something was wrong with the RPM
database (at /var/lib/rpm) was that running rpm -qa would hang as
well.
The solution is to rebuild the RPM database. In short:
#Ā Backups!
tarĀ -czvfĀ /tmp/rpm.tgzĀ /var/lib/rpm
#Ā RemoveĀ theĀ databaseĀ locks
rmĀ -fĀ /var/lib/rpm/__db*
#Ā Rebuild!
rpmĀ -vvĀ --rebuilddb
That should do it.