Yum cache regeneration

At the office I recently upgraded a machine to CentOS 5.2 from CentOS 4.7 (filesystem stayed intact). Everything was cool until I ran into a bit of an issue when attempting to update and regen the yum cache. I got a python traceback that looked like this:

# yum update base : ################################################## 2458/2458 update 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 242 kB 00:00 Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in ? yummain.main(sys.argv[1:]) File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 105, in main result, resultmsgs = base.doCommands() File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 289, in doCommands self._getTs() File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/depsolve.py", line 85, in _getTs self._getTsInfo() File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/depsolve.py", line 91, in _getTsInfo self._tsInfo.setDatabases(self.rpmdb, self.pkgSack) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 537, in <lambda> pkgSack = property(fget=lambda self: self._getSacks(), File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 392, in _getSacks self.repos.populateSack(which=repos) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/repos.py", line 242, in populateSack sack.populate(repo, mdtype, callback, cacheonly) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/yumRepo.py", line 168, in populate dobj = repo_cache_function(xml, csum) File "/usr/lib64/python2.4/site-packages/sqlitecachec.py", line 42, in getPrimary self.repoid)) TypeError: Can not prepare packages insertion: table packages has no column named location_base

Eeek! Got the same error when running yum makecache. Quick look at the traceback is somewhat obvious, the DB schema changed, but the DB didn’t get upgraded! Easy fix is to clear out your yum cache like so:

# cd /var/cache/yum # rm -r *

And then you’ll want to regenerate your cache like so:

# yum makecache

Hope this helps anyone else who runs into this issue!