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Faced a non-standard case, when trying to update system packages I receive a heap of errors connected with the fact that there are duplicate packages.

If you run the command to scan system packages to duplicate packages, I got this output:

# package-cleanup --dupes
kbd-misc-1.15.5-11.el7.noarch
kbd-misc-1.15.5-13.el7.noarch
cyrus-sasl-md5-2.1.26-17.el7.x86_64
cyrus-sasl-md5-2.1.26-21.el7.x86_64
iputils-20160308-10.el7.x86_64
iputils-20121221-6.el7_1.1.x86_64
libhbalinux-1.0.16-4.el7.x86_64
libhbalinux-1.0.17-2.el7.x86_64
totem-3.22.1-1.el7.x86_64
totem-3.8.2-5.el7.x86_64
numactl-libs-2.0.9-6.el7_2.x86_64
numactl-libs-2.0.9-5.el7_1.x86_64
libvirt-daemon-driver-nwfilter-1.2.8-16.el7_1.5.x86_64
libvirt-daemon-driver-nwfilter-3.2.0-14.el7_4.3.x86_64
rsyslog-8.24.0-12.el7.x86_64
libpurple-2.10.11-5.el7.x86_64
libpurple-2.10.7-22.el7.x86_64
libsndfile-1.0.25-10.el7.x86_64
libsndfile-1.0.25-9.el7.x86_64
libsndfile-1.0.25-9.el7.i686
libsndfile-1.0.25-10.el7.i686
abrt-2.1.11-48.el7.centos.x86_64
abrt-2.1.11-22.el7.centos.0.1.x86_64


The output is not complete, but in fact there were more than 900 packages that conflicted with each other

Reason: On the PC more than a year did not update the system, then decided to do it, run the command yum update -y but tired of waiting and shut down the PC forced during the installation of new packages :facepalm:. Theoretically, this case can also occur in the event of an emergency power outage.

Consequences: Duplicate and conflicting old packages with new ones. The system continued to operate normally. Except that I couldn't boot from the updated kernel.

Solution: If there are not many such packages in the Internet sources write that this problem can be solved with the command:

package-cleanup --cleandupes


But in "my" case it did not help and the problem was solved very tedious and long.

1. Executed the command package-cleanup --dupes

2. Select packages that are older and delete them:

rpm -e kbd-misc-1.15.5-11.el7.noarch cyrus-sasl-md5-2.1.26-17.el7.x86_64

3. If you receive an error related to dependencies with other packages, perform a forced removal of the old package from the RPM database:

rpm -e --nodeps --justdb abrt-2.1.11-22.el7.centos.0.1.x86_64


4. At the end of this process, we clean the cache and try to update the packages:

yum clean all && yum update -y