[SOLVED] nss-softokn-freebl fails to update

[pinkeyegraphics]

Hello. I am running CentOS 6.5 on a webserver. In fact I have two similar systems and am experiencing the same issue on both.

When I run updates (via webmin usually) one package doesn't update: nss-softokn-freebl. I get the following error:

Installing package(s) with command yum -y install nss-softokn-freebl ..
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* atomic: www7.atomicorp.com
* base: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
* extras: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
* updates: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package nss-softokn-freebl.x86_64 0:3.14.3-9.el6 will be updated
---> Package nss-softokn-freebl.x86_64 0:3.14.3-10.el6_5 will be an update
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Multilib version problems found. This often means that the root
cause is something else and multilib version checking is just
pointing out that there is a problem. Eg.:

1. You have an upgrade for nss-softokn-freebl which is missing some
dependency that another package requires. Yum is trying to
solve this by installing an older version of nss-softokn-freebl of the
different architecture. If you exclude the bad architecture
yum will tell you what the root cause is (which package
requires what). You can try redoing the upgrade with
--exclude nss-softokn-freebl.otherarch ... this should give you an error
message showing the root cause of the problem.

2. You have multiple architectures of nss-softokn-freebl installed, but
yum can only see an upgrade for one of those arcitectures.
If you don't want/need both architectures anymore then you
can remove the one with the missing update and everything
will work.

3. You have duplicate versions of nss-softokn-freebl installed already.
You can use "yum check" to get yum show these errors.

...you can also use --setopt=protected_multilib=false to remove
this checking, however this is almost never the correct thing to
do as something else is very likely to go wrong (often causing
much more problems).

Protected multilib versions: nss-softokn-freebl-3.14.3-10.el6_5.x86_64 != nss-softokn-freebl-3.14.3-9.el6.i686
You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
You could try running: rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest
.. install failed!

So i have checked as suggested, and indeed I have two apparently identical versions of nss-softokn-freebl-3.14.3-10.el6_5.x86_64 installed. But when I try to uninstall either or both of them i get this error:

error: "nss-softokn-freebl-3.14.3-9.el6" specifies multiple packages:
nss-softokn-freebl-3.14.3-9.el6.x86_64
nss-softokn-freebl-3.14.3-9.el6.i686

I don't understand enough about this issue to go any further, and as this is a very busy production server I don't want to do anything risky. Can I disregard this issue?

[toracat]

Can you show us the output returned by:

yum list nss-softokn-freebl

[pinkeyegraphics]

Thanks for that, here's what I see:

> yum list nss-softokn-freebl
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* atomic: www7.atomicorp.com
* base: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
* extras: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
* updates: mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net
Installed Packages
nss-softokn-freebl.i686 3.14.3-9.el6 @base
nss-softokn-freebl.x86_64 3.14.3-9.el6 @anaconda-CentOS-201112102333.x86_64/6.5
Available Packages
nss-softokn-freebl.i686 3.14.3-10.el6_5 updates
nss-softokn-freebl.x86_64 3.14.3-10.el6_5 updates

[toracat]

So, you indeed have both 64-bit and 32-bit version of nss-softokn-freebl installed and the updates are available for both of them. I would say the yum update command should work. Perhaps try 'yum clean all' first?

Or if you do not need the 32-bit version, try uninstalling it by 'yum remove nss-softokn-freebl.i686'.

[avij]

Actually.. What you're apparently trying to do is "yum install nss-softokn-freebl". This will try to install the latest nss-softokn-freebl (x86_64), but will not even try to touch the previously installed i686 package.

Try "yum update" (without any other parameters) instead of "yum install nss-softokn-freebl". From the command line, not through webmin. Or remove the i686 package if you don't need it.

[toracat]

Ah-ha! I missed the "install" part. That explains it.

[pinkeyegraphics]

That was exactly the right solution. I ran yum update from the command line, all is now working as expected.

Thanks for a swift and accurate diagnosis.