[CentOS] rpm scriptlet failed

Mon Jan 8 14:16:41 UTC 2007
Tony Schreiner <schreian at bc.edu>

I have a system (Centos 4.4 all packages uptodate) where almost every  
rpm or yum operation fails with a message  like e.g.:

error: %preun(a2ps-4.13b-41.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 255

some times the error is on %post()

the last few lines of output from

rpm -e -vv a2ps
are
D: ========== --- a2ps-4.13b-41 i386-linux 0x1
D:     erase: a2ps-4.13b-41 has 316 files, test = 0
D: opening  db index       /var/lib/rpm/Name create mode=0x42
D:  read h#    1071 Header V3 DSA signature: OK, key ID 443e1821
D: opening  db index       /var/lib/rpm/Triggername create mode=0x42
D:     erase: %preun(a2ps-4.13b-41.i386) asynchronous scriptlet start
D:     erase: %preun(a2ps-4.13b-41.i386)        execv(/bin/sh) pid 29443
D:     erase: waitpid(29443) rc 29443 status ff00 secs 0.001
error: %preun(a2ps-4.13b-41.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 255
D: closed   db index       /var/lib/rpm/Triggername
D: closed   db index       /var/lib/rpm/Basenames
D: closed   db index       /var/lib/rpm/Name
D: closed   db index       /var/lib/rpm/Packages
D: closed   db environment /var/lib/rpm/Packages

I can do the install /remove/update with --noscripts, but that  
doesn't seem like a good idea.

rpm --rebuilddb has not helped

selinux is enabled but permissive.

I've seen a few mentions of this on google, but found no solution.

Anybody experienced this?
Tony