How to fix Error: Transaction check error with dnf/yum

When a dnf or yum process gets interrupted, you may get the below error:

Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
The downloaded packages were saved in cache until the next successful transaction.
You can remove cached packages by executing 'dnf clean packages'.
Error: Transaction check error:
file /usr/share/doc/avahi-libs/README from install of avahi-libs-0.6.32-0.4.rc.fc23.i686 conflicts
with file from package avahi-libs-0.6.31-43.fc23.x86_64

When presented with Error: Transaction check error, you are unable to install, update, or upgrade your system. The solution is to attempt to install the program (or download the files), locate them on your system, and manually update them using rpm.

In the example above, I want to update avahi-libs to a later version, but an older version still exists on my system. The dnf process was interrupted before it could erase the older version. Hence, the error means manual intervention of the problem is required. To fix, one needs to locate the newer version and use the rpm command to forcefully install the update. In other words, do the following:

find /var/cache/dnf/ -iname avahi-libs-0.6.32* -type f
rpm -Uvh --replacefiles /path/to/avahi-libs-0.6.32-0.4.rc.fc23.i686.rpm

There is a good chance that the file you need is in /var/cache/dnf/ already and does not need to be downloaded from a mirror.

7 comments

  1. Please I need help with this. I cant really get this fixed on my site. Can one guide me?

    file /usr/lib64/ImageMagick-6.9.12/config-Q16/configure.xml from install of ImageMagick-libs-0:6.9.12.48-2.el8.x86_64 conflicts with file from package ImageMagick6-libs-1:6.9.12.50-1.el8.remi.x86_64

    1. The error message shows that you already have a newer version installed.

  2. A mi también me “salvó la vida”. He tenido el problema dos veces con Fedora 30 en el último mes en dos diferentes laptop.
    Muy agradecido por publicar esta solución.
    Un saludo muy cordial

  3. Worked perfectly for me. Thank you! I was about 2 steps away from freaking out ?

  4. I tried this solution, but I get another error when installing the package. Here’s the full output:
    Error: Transaction check error:
    file /usr/share/ipxe/10222000.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch
    file /usr/share/ipxe/10ec8029.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch
    file /usr/share/ipxe/10ec8139.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch
    file /usr/share/ipxe/15ad07b0.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch
    file /usr/share/ipxe/1af41000.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch
    file /usr/share/ipxe/8086100e.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch
    file /usr/share/ipxe/808610d3.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch
    file /usr/share/ipxe/80861209.rom conflicts between attempted installs of ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch and ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch

    Error Summary
    ————-

    [peterd@localhost build-system]$ find /var/cache/dnf/ -iname ipxe-roms-qemu-* -type f
    /var/cache/dnf/updates-c4f1c95f64c2b794/packages/ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch.rpm
    [peterd@localhost build-system]$ rpm -Uvh –replacefiles /var/cache/dnf/updates-c4f1c95f64c2b794/packages/ipxe-roms-qemu-20160622-1.git0418631.fc24.noarch.rpm
    error: Failed dependencies:
    ipxe-roms-qemu = 20160127-1.git6366fa7a.el7 is needed by (installed) ipxe-roms-20160127-1.git6366fa7a.el7.noarch
    [peterd@l

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