How to Rebuild the RPM Database

If you think your RPM database may be corrupted, or out-of-date, because it does not answer queries for RPMs you know are installed; or you've given your system a major overhaul and want to be sure the RPM database is up-to-date, try rebuilding the RPM database, as root:

 # rpm —rebuilddb

or completely re-create it:

# rpm —initdb

It is uncommon for the RPM database to need rebuilding, but it doesn't hurt anything to try. Any time you make major changes to your system is a good time to rebuild the RPM database. If you compare the size of /var/lib/rpm/packages before and after running rpm —rebuilddb, you may notice some shrinkage, because it has removed unused portions of the database.