Why does my rpm command sometime hangs in Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5 and what can I do to get around the problem?

Release found: Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5

Resolution:

Sometimes the rpm command on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 hangs. This happens due to the stale locks left in the rpm database because of former incorrectly terminated rpm processes. This problem typically doesn't occur on rhel6 where berkeley db (backend of rpm db) can detect and purge stale...