error: trying to remove "yum", which is protected

Trying to update one of the my VPS today with sudo yum update command and encounter this funky error message :

error: trying to remove "yum", which is protected

From the output :

 --> Finished Dependency Resolution
 Error: Package: coreutils-libs-8.4-31.el6_5.2.x86_64 (@updates)
 Requires: coreutils = 8.4-31.el6_5.2
 Removing: coreutils-8.4-31.el6_5.2.x86_64 (@updates)
 coreutils = 8.4-31.el6_5.2
 Updated By: coreutils-8.4-37.el6.x86_64 (base)
 coreutils = 8.4-37.el6
  You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
 ** Found 31 pre-existing rpmdb problem(s), 'yum check' output follows:

and issuing the sudo yum --skip-broken command will work but give this hint for what is causing the funky error :

error: Failed dependencies:

coreutils-libs = 8.4-31.el65.2 is needed by (installed) coreutils-8.4-31.el65.2.x86_64

seems like the package coreutils-8.4-31.el6_5.2.x86_64 is causing the problem with dependencies issue

SOLUTION :

To fix this funky error, use the rpm- e --justdb <package name> command and in my own example here, I'll just issue

> sudo rpm -e --justdb coreutils-libs-8.4-37.el6.x86_64

and than

> sudo yum update

bingo! all packages updated.