Why does yum or up2date or rhnreg_ks terminate with error 'Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running' on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Issue

• Why does yum or up2date terminate with error 'Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running' on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

  $ yum repolist 
  Loaded plugins: changelog, downloadonly, kmod, protectbase, rhnplugin, security, versionlock 
  rpmdb: Lock table is out of available locker entries 
  rpmdb: Unknown locker ID: d296 
  error: db4 error(22) from db->close: Invalid argument 
  error: cannot open Providename index using db3 - Cannot allocate memory (12) 
  rpmdb: Lock table is out of available locker entries 
  rpmdb: Unknown locker ID: d299 
  error: db4 error(22) from db->close: Invalid argument 
  Traceback (most recent call last): 
    File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in ? 
      yummain.user_main(sys.argv[1:], exit_code=True) 
    File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 309, in user_main 
      errcode = main(args) 
    File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 157, in main 
      base.getOptionsConfig(args) 
    File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 187, in getOptionsConfig 
      self.conf 
    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 664, in <lambda> 
      conf = property(fget=lambda self: self._getConfig(), 
    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 253, in _getConfig 
      self.plugins.run('init') 
    File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/plugins.py", line 179, in run 
      func(conduitcls(self, self.base, conf, **kwargs)) 
    File "/usr/lib/yum-plugins/rhnplugin.py", line 111, in init_hook 
      login_info = up2dateAuth.getLoginInfo() 
    File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateAuth.py", line 217, in getLoginInfo 
      login() 
    File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateAuth.py", line 181, in login 
      maybeUpdateVersion() 
    File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateAuth.py", line 45, in maybeUpdateVersion 
      systemVer = up2dateUtils.getVersion() 
    File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateUtils.py", line 46, in getVersion 
      os_release, version, release = _getOSVersionAndRelease() 
    File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateUtils.py", line 36, in _getOSVersionAndRelease 
      raise up2dateErrors.RpmError( 
  up2date_client.up2dateErrors.RpmError: RPM error.  The message was: 
  Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running. 
  If you get this error, try running  
  
            rpm --rebuilddb 
  

• rhn register command against satellite server fails with the message below

  $ rhnreg_ks 
  
  An error has occurred: 
  Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running. 
  If you get this error, try running 
  rpm --rebuilddb 
  

• Attempting to apply updates using the Gnome Updater applet and am receiving the following error:

  $ Component: pirut
    Summary: TB008f8aa3 up2dateUtils.py:36:_getOSVersionAndRelease:RpmError: Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running.
    If you get this error, try running  
  
  rpm --rebuilddb