Yum Warning: There Are Unfinished Transactions Remaining, You Might Consider Running Yum-Complete-Transaction First To Finish Them

During the build of a Linux development server earlier I performed a “yum update” to update all of the packages after installing CentOS 5.4. I got busy with other tasks and left the server at work without checking to verify that the update had worked properly. Now after dinner I started to get back to work on the server by installing some new packages via yum and received a yum warning message which I describe in greater detail below along with how to resolve the warning.

CentOS Linux Yum Warning Message:

There are unfinished transactions remaining. You might consider running yum-complete-transaction first to finish them.
The program yum-complete-transaction is found in the yum-utils package.

The above message showed up near the top of the output of “yum remove sendmail” and after testing it turns out that the message displays on any yum command that is issued to this server. I assume that earlier when issuing a yum update things did not complete correctly thus leaving some unfinished transactions. Resolving this issue is easy enough though by installing the “yum-utils” package and then running yum-complete-transaction.

Install Yum-Utils Using The Yum Package Manager:

[root@cent1 src]# yum install yum-utils
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * addons: www.gtlib.gatech.edu
 * base: mirror.steadfast.net
 * extras: mirror.cogentco.com
 * rpmforge: apt.sw.be
 * updates: pubmirrors.reflected.net
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
There are unfinished transactions remaining. You might consider running yum-complete-transaction first to finish them.
The program yum-complete-transaction is found in the yum-utils package.
--> Running transaction check
---> Package yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.16-14.el5.centos.1 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

====================================================================================================================================
 Package                       Arch                       Version                                    Repository                Size
====================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 yum-utils                     noarch                     1.1.16-14.el5.centos.1                     base                      69 k

Transaction Summary
====================================================================================================================================
Install       1 Package(s)
Upgrade       0 Package(s)

Total download size: 69 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
yum-utils-1.1.16-14.el5.centos.1.noarch.rpm                                                                  |  69 kB     00:00
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Installing     : yum-utils                                                                                                    1/1

Installed:
  yum-utils.noarch 0:1.1.16-14.el5.centos.1

Complete!

As you can see above even when installing the yum-utils package a warning displays about unfinished transactions. The yum-utils package includes numerous yum tools such as yum-complete-transaction, yumdownloader, yum-builddep, yum-debug-dump, and yum-groups-manager. These tools can all be helpful in troubleshooting any yum errors or warnings. Below is the output of running the yum-complete-transactions which simply looks for transactions that were not completed properly and then finishes the yum transaction. As you will see in the output below the packages had all been installed but for some reason the transaction did not close out. There are a ton of packages since I was running yum update for the first time.

CentOS Linux: yum-complete-transaction Output:

[root@cent1 src]# yum-complete-transaction
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * addons: www.gtlib.gatech.edu
 * base: mirror.steadfast.net
 * extras: mirror.cogentco.com
 * rpmforge: apt.sw.be
 * updates: pubmirrors.reflected.net
Checking for new repos for mirrors
There are 1 outstanding transactions to complete. Finishing the most recent one
The remaining transaction had 324 elements left to run
Package perl-Convert-ASN1-0.22-1.el5.rf.noarch already installed and latest version
Package kernel-headers-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package tzdata-2010i-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package glibc-common-2.5-49.i386 already installed and latest version
Package filesystem-2.4.0-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package centos-release-notes-5.5-0.i386 already installed and latest version
Package pciutils-devel-2.2.3-8.el5_4.i386 already installed and latest version
Package automake-1.9.6-2.3.el5.noarch already installed and latest version
Package perl-Crypt-PasswdMD5-1.3-1.2.el5.rf.noarch already installed and latest version
Package kernel-devel-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5.i686 already installed and latest version
Package nash-5.1.19.6-61.el5_5.1.i386 already installed and latest version
Package kudzu-devel-1.2.57.1.24-1.el5.centos.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 10:centos-release-5-5.el5.centos.i386 already installed and latest version
Package automake15-1.5-16.el5.2.noarch already installed and latest version
Package logwatch-7.3-8.el5.noarch already installed and latest version
Package rpmforge-release-0.5.1-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package automake14-1.4p6-13.el5.1.noarch already installed and latest version
Package yum-3.2.22-26.el5.centos.noarch already installed and latest version
Package man-pages-2.39-15.el5_4.noarch already installed and latest version
Package automake17-1.7.9-7.el5.2.noarch already installed and latest version
Package automake16-1.6.3-8.el5.1.noarch already installed and latest version
Package libgcc-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package glibc-2.5-49.i686 already installed and latest version
Package chkconfig-1.3.30.2-2.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package openldap-2.3.43-12.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package audit-libs-1.7.17-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libsepol-1.15.2-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package device-mapper-1.02.39-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libstdc++-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libacl-2.2.39-6.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 2:shadow-utils-4.0.17-15.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package binutils-2.17.50.0.6-14.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:cups-libs-1.3.7-18.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package newt-0.52.2-15.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package kpartx-0.4.7-34.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package pcsc-lite-libs-1.4.4-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package procps-3.2.7-16.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 2:tar-1.15.1-30.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package system-config-securitylevel-tui-1.6.29.1-5.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:net-snmp-libs-5.3.2.2-9.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package curl-7.15.5-9.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package OpenIPMI-libs-2.0.16-7.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libgfortran-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libXrandr-1.1.1-3.3.i386 already installed and latest version
Package compat-libevent11-1.1a-1.rhel5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package device-mapper-multipath-0.4.7-34.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package ntsysv-1.3.30.2-2.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package paps-0.6.6-19.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package crash-4.1.2-4.el5.centos.i386 already installed and latest version
Package sendmail-8.13.8-8.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package nscd-2.5-49.i386 already installed and latest version
Package device-mapper-event-1.02.39-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package lvm2-2.02.56-8.el5_5.1.i386 already installed and latest version
Package openssh-4.3p2-41.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package audit-libs-python-1.7.17-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package policycoreutils-1.33.12-14.8.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libsmbclient-3.0.33-3.28.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package samba-common-3.0.33-3.28.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package pcsc-lite-1.4.4-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package coolkey-1.1.0-14.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dnsmasq-2.51-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 14:libpcap-0.9.4-15.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:dmidecode-2.10-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package xorg-x11-server-Xvfb-1.1.1-48.76.el5_5.1.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 12:dhclient-3.0.5-23.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package iproute-2.6.18-11.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package hmaccalc-0.9.6-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package nss_ldap-253-25.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libgcj-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package poppler-0.5.4-4.4.el5_4.11.i386 already installed and latest version
Package poppler-utils-0.5.4-4.4.el5_4.11.i386 already installed and latest version
Package parted-1.8.1-27.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libevent-1.4.13-1.i386 already installed and latest version
Package pam_krb5-2.2.14-15.i386 already installed and latest version
Package gail-1.9.2-3.el5_4.i386 already installed and latest version
Package xdelta-1.1.4-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package numactl-0.9.8-11.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package perl-Digest-SHA1-2.12-2.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package cpp-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package nss_db-2.2-35.4.el5_5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libaio-0.3.106-5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package mesa-libGL-6.5.1-7.8.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package lftp-4.0.7-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libXt-1.0.2-3.2.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package syslinux-3.86-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 2:nmap-5.00-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package samba-3.0.33-3.28.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package samba-client-3.0.33-3.28.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package openssh-clients-4.3p2-41.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package openssh-server-4.3p2-41.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package mdadm-2.6.9-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package OpenIPMI-2.0.16-7.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:autofs-5.0.1-0.rc2.143.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:readahead-1.3-8.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package oprofile-0.9.4-15.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 14:tcpdump-3.9.4-15.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package rsync-3.0.7-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package acl-2.2.39-6.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package iptstate-1.4-2.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package audit-1.7.17-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package sudo-1.7.2p1-6.el5_5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package openldap-clients-2.3.43-12.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:cpuspeed-1.2.1-9.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package sysklogd-1.4.1-46.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:microcode_ctl-1.17-1.50.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package net-tools-1.60-81.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package ksh-20100202-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package at-3.1.8-84.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package tcsh-6.14-17.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 2:mtr-0.75-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package vconfig-1.9-3.i386 already installed and latest version
Package cadaver-0.22.5-1.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package yp-tools-2.9-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package less-436-2.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package checkpolicy-1.33.1-6.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package gdb-7.0.1-23.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:valgrind-3.5.0-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package ethtool-6-4.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dhcpv6-client-1.0.10-18.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libhugetlbfs-1.3-7.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package pax-3.4-2.el5_4.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dosfstools-2.11-9.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package udftools-1.0.0b3-3.el5.rf.i386 already installed and latest version
Package glibc-headers-2.5-49.i386 already installed and latest version
Package glibc-devel-2.5-49.i386 already installed and latest version
Package selinux-policy-2.4.6-279.el5.noarch already installed and latest version
Package libstdc++-devel-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package selinux-policy-targeted-2.4.6-279.el5.noarch already installed and latest version
Package dogtail-0.6.1-3.el5.noarch already installed and latest version
Package coolkey-devel-1.1.0-14.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package firstboot-tui-1.4.27.8-1.el5.centos.i386 already installed and latest version
Package curl-devel-7.15.5-9.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package system-config-securitylevel-1.6.29.1-5.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package sos-1.7-9.49.el5.noarch already installed and latest version
Package pcsc-lite-devel-1.4.4-1.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package newt-devel-0.52.2-15.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libacl-devel-2.2.39-6.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package libsepol-devel-1.15.2-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package openldap-devel-2.3.43-12.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package system-config-services-0.9.4-5.el5.noarch already installed and latest version
Package gcc-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package gcc-c++-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package gcc-gfortran-4.1.2-48.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dbus-libs-1.1.2-14.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dbus-1.1.2-14.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package avahi-0.6.16-7.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package hal-0.5.8.1-59.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dmraid-1.0.0.rc13-63.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package avahi-compat-libdns_sd-0.6.16-7.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package avahi-glib-0.6.16-7.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:wpa_supplicant-0.5.10-9.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dmraid-events-1.0.0.rc13-63.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package gnome-vfs2-2.16.2-6.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:cups-1.3.7-18.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package dbus-devel-1.1.2-14.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:NetworkManager-0.7.0-10.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:NetworkManager-glib-0.7.0-10.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package mkinitrd-5.1.19.6-61.el5_5.1.i386 already installed and latest version
Package module-init-tools-3.3-0.pre3.1.60.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package 1:nfs-utils-1.0.9-44.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package hwdata-0.213.18-1.el5.1.noarch already installed and latest version
Package kernel-2.6.18-194.3.1.el5.i686 already installed and latest version
Package systemtap-runtime-1.1-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package systemtap-1.1-3.el5.i386 already installed and latest version
Package kudzu-1.2.57.1.24-1.el5.centos.i386 already installed and latest version
Package pciutils-2.2.3-8.el5_4.i386 already installed and latest version
There are unfinished transactions remaining. You might consider running yum-complete-transaction first to finish them.
Nothing in the unfinished transaction to cleanup.
Cleaning up completed transaction file

Now when running yum commands on this server I do not receive the warning message about yum transactions that need to be completed. The yum-complete-transaction application first checks for incomplete yum transactions, list the number of incomplete yum transactions, list the number of elements per transaction, complete the transactions, and then clean up the now completed yum transaction.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at 8:27 PM and is filed under Errors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.