Acronis Cyber Infrastructure: Check for updates fails with "Cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm"

You get this error message on attempt to check cluster updates or start updates via WebCP -> Settings -> Updates:

Failed to start update check
Yum repository is inaccessible on <node_name>

Yum repository is accessible from the affected node, however, the log /var/log/vstorage-ui-agent/software-updates.log contains the following messages:

error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm