CentOS yum thinks removed packages are still installed

Question

I have 2 packages in my yum that I would like to get rid of. When I list the installed packages they appear in the output, and when I try to erase them, yum seems to think it's ok and proceeds with the removal. However, they never go away, they stay in the list and I can erase them 42 times and nothing happens. There is no error message. I've tried rebuilding the rpm database with:

rm -rf /var/lib/rpm/__db.00* rpm --rebuilddb

And that didn't help. Example:

$ yum erase eclipse-ecj.x86_64
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Setting up Remove Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package eclipse-ecj.x86_64 1:3.2.1-19.el5.centos set to be erased
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

=====================================================================================================
 Package               Arch             Version                            Repository           Size
=====================================================================================================
Removing:
 eclipse-ecj           x86_64           1:3.2.1-19.el5.centos              installed            23 M

Transaction Summary
=====================================================================================================
Remove        1 Package(s)
Reinstall     0 Package(s)
Downgrade     0 Package(s)

Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Erasing        : eclipse-ecj                                                                   1/1

Removed:
  eclipse-ecj.x86_64 1:3.2.1-19.el5.centos

Complete!
$ yum erase eclipse-ecj.x86_64
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Setting up Remove Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package eclipse-ecj.x86_64 1:3.2.1-19.el5.centos set to be erased
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

=====================================================================================================
 Package               Arch             Version                            Repository           Size
=====================================================================================================
Removing:
 eclipse-ecj           x86_64           1:3.2.1-19.el5.centos              installed            23 M

Transaction Summary
=====================================================================================================
Remove        1 Package(s)
Reinstall     0 Package(s)
Downgrade     0 Package(s)

Is this ok [y/N]:

Help!

Answer 1

I see from the above comment that the postun scriptlet is failing. You can remove it without triggering the script with:

rpm -e --noscripts eclipse-ecj

Answer 2

Try "rpm -e --nodeps PACKAGENAME" - followed up with "yum clean all; yum check" and see if you get any interesting output. If you get no output, you should find that the package is gone now. If you do, then you need to follow up from there.