How to clean up Yum mess?

[Arthur Dent]

Hello all,

Regular readers will know that I have just recovered from a kernel panic
on my F16 box. This was caused by an automatic update not completing
properly. I really don't like the new system of fully-automatic or
manual-only updates. I preferred the pre F15 method of informing you by
means of an applet when updates are available. Anyway I chose to go with
auto because I would probably forget otherwise and I kind of liked the
idea that the system would be kept up to date in the background. I now
see that this was a mistake because there is no mechanism for warning
you that updates are taking place. I presume I shut down the system
blissfully unaware that I was about to wreak havoc on it as updates had
only partially completed.

Running you manually it gave me a warning that there were unfinished
jobs, but when I allowed it to attempt to complete them it failed with a
message saying something like timestamp was different or something.

"yum check" shows the following:
# yum check
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
glibc-2.14.90-24.fc16.6.i686 is a duplicate with glibc-2.14.90-24.fc16.4.i686
glibc-common-2.14.90-24.fc16.6.i686 is a duplicate with glibc-common-2.14.90-24.fc16.4.i686
glibc-headers-2.14.90-24.fc16.6.i686 is a duplicate with glibc-headers-2.14.90-24.fc16.4.i686
ibus-pinyin-db-open-phrase-1.4.0-12.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with ibus-pinyin-db-open-phrase-1.3.99.20110706-2.fc16.noarch
openssh-5.8p2-25.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with openssh-5.8p2-24.fc16.i686
4:perl-5.14.2-195.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with 4:perl-5.14.2-193.fc16.i686
1:perl-Module-Pluggable-3.90-195.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with 1:perl-Module-Pluggable-3.90-193.fc16.noarch
perl-PathTools-3.33-195.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with perl-PathTools-3.33-193.fc16.i686
1:perl-Pod-Escapes-1.04-195.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with 1:perl-Pod-Escapes-1.04-193.fc16.noarch
1:perl-Pod-Simple-3.16-195.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with 1:perl-Pod-Simple-3.16-193.fc16.noarch
perl-Scalar-List-Utils-1.23-195.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with perl-Scalar-List-Utils-1.23-193.fc16.i686
4:perl-libs-5.14.2-195.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with 4:perl-libs-5.14.2-193.fc16.i686
4:perl-macros-5.14.2-195.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with 4:perl-macros-5.14.2-193.fc16.i686
perl-threads-1.83-195.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with perl-threads-1.83-193.fc16.i686
perl-threads-shared-1.37-195.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with perl-threads-shared-1.37-193.fc16.i686
python-cloudfiles-1.7.9.3-1.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with python-cloudfiles-1.7.9.1-1.fc16.noarch
ql2400-firmware-5.06.05-1.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with ql2400-firmware-5.06.02-1.fc16.noarch
ql2500-firmware-5.06.05-1.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with ql2500-firmware-5.06.02-1.fc16.noarch
setroubleshoot-plugins-3.0.27-1.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with setroubleshoot-plugins-3.0.21-1.fc16.noarch
setroubleshoot-server-3.1.3-1.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with setroubleshoot-server-3.1.2-1.fc16.i686
systemtap-runtime-1.7-2.fc16.i686 is a duplicate with systemtap-runtime-1.7-1.fc16.i686
thai-scalable-fonts-common-0.5.0-1.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with thai-scalable-fonts-common-0.4.17-1.fc16.noarch
thai-scalable-waree-fonts-0.5.0-1.fc16.noarch is a duplicate with thai-scalable-waree-fonts-0.4.17-1.fc16.noarch
Error: check all

If I try to reinstall the packages, either collectively or individually,
it fails with an error saying package X is needed by package Y (when
it's the earlier version of the same package).

How can I clean up this mess?

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions...

Mark

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