I deleted the cache file as you instructed - no problems doing this.
I then went to YaST-->Software Repositories and used the "refresh" button. No problems doing this. (but there never was any either)
Then I went to YaST-->Online Update and I got the same exact problem again as above except now it says it's failed to cache repo on "/var/cache/zypp/solv/repo-oss/solv"
So... I tried your command line on repo-oss and removed that dir and ran the YaST--> Online Update again. I got the same error on repo-oss this time instead of non-repo-oss.
I then deleted both repo-oss and non-repo-oss dirs, refreshed software repositories, then went to Online Update again. It worked for a while and then bombed out again - same error - still on solv/repo-oss/solv instead of non-repo-oss.
Please note that this is a change from the original state. The original error was on non-repo-oss. now it's sticking on repo-oss.
Thanks very much for your help so far, but I still can't complete an update
