Building latest GNOME SRPMS

[Tim Moore <tmoore tembel org>]

OK, I've managed to break two systems trying to compile the latest GNOME
SRPMS from ftp.gnome.org.

After building some of the packages, rpm -b? refuses to work at all. If I
try to build *anything* else, it just hangs there, not printing anything
or even unpacking the sources until I kill it. Erasing the packages I just
installed doesn't help. Neither does rpm --rebuilddb.

When this happened last night (LinuxPPC R4) I assumed my system was
broken. But then it happened again today on my machine at work (RedHat
5.1/i386) so I'm thinking something's up with the SRPM. I know for sure
that I build ORBit immediately before it broke (and in fact ORBit was the
first and only one I built) on my RH system today. Yesterday I'm not sure
which one broke it, but it could have been ORBit, too.

So my questions are:

1) Has anybody else seen this?
2) Has anyone had any better luck building the SRPMS (esp. after
building ORBit)?
3) How can I fix my machines such that I can start building SRPMS again?

TIA,
Tim Moore