Bug 1471916 - Cannot start gnome-terminal when no locale is set
Summary: Cannot start gnome-terminal when no locale is set
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gnome-terminal
Version: 29
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
high
urgent
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Debarshi Ray
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2017-07-17 16:12 UTC by Georg Sauthoff
Modified: 2019-11-27 23:09 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2019-11-27 23:09:15 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Georg Sauthoff 2017-07-17 16:12:39 UTC
Description of problem:
On a fresh Fedora 26 system without any locale settings, the gnome shell terminal doesn't start. Instead, it silently fails.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
gnome-terminal-3.24.2-1.fc26.x86_64

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install Fedora 26 without setting any locale information (i.e. empty /etc/locale.conf, skip gnome shell welcome dialog with language settings).
2. Login from GDM to gnome shell
3. Start Terminal

Actual results:
Nothing happens in the graphical user interface. No terminal window appears. No error dialog appears.

The system journal has these error messages:

Jul 17 15:44:40 example.org systemd[2125]: Starting GNOME Terminal Server...
Jul 17 15:44:40 example.org dbus-daemon[2151]: [session uid=1000 pid=2151] Successfully activated service 'org.gnome.Calculator.SearchProvider'
Jul 17 15:44:40 example.org gnome-terminal-server[4813]: Non UTF-8 locale (ANSI_X3.4-1968) is not supported!
Jul 17 15:44:40 example.org systemd[2125]: gnome-terminal-server.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=8/n/a
Jul 17 15:44:40 example.org systemd[2125]: Failed to start GNOME Terminal Server.

Expected results:
The terminal window shows up. Or an error message is displayed - i.e. an error dialg - since this is a GUI application.

Additional info:
Starting an xterm from the gnome shell launcher works. There the following environment variables are set:

GDM_LANG=C
LANG=C

Bug 1185040 is related, although it is triggered by an alternative desktop setup.

Comment 1 Fedora End Of Life 2018-05-03 08:46:01 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 26 is nearing its end of life.
Approximately 4 (four) weeks from now Fedora will stop maintaining
and issuing updates for Fedora 26. It is Fedora's policy to close all
bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time
this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a Fedora  'version'
of '26'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version'
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not
able to fix it before Fedora 26 is end of life. If you would still like
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 2 Debarshi Ray 2018-05-03 16:33:22 UTC
I doubt this will ever be fixed.  Is there any particular reason that you want to have an empty /etc/locale.conf?

Comment 3 Georg Sauthoff 2018-05-03 21:20:18 UTC
Well, the point of this bug report is: having an important GUI application that has the worst failure mode is quite bad.

It isn't about eliminating /etc/locale.conf.

I mean, when you are (for whatever reason, e.g. filesystem corruption, bug in the installer, accidental skipping the welcome dialog (!), ...) in the situation that you don't have the right /etc/locale.conf and gnome-terminal feels to be extravagant enough to only work with UTF-8 locales explicitly set, then the least you should expect is a properly displayed error message - e.g. in an error dialog.

As-is, it just silently fails, i.e. there is no visible feedback, it just doesn't start.

Improving this failure mode would increase the user-friendliness of the Gnome desktop, I would argue.

Comment 4 Alexandre Franke 2018-05-06 21:42:03 UTC
“Interesting” related issue (side effect?): currently there is a bug (#1574222) which makes it so that after an upgrade to F28 the language packs are not installed as they should (glibc-language-* missing amongst other things) and one cannot launch the terminal to debug the issue.

Comment 5 Yann Droneaud 2018-05-07 14:41:40 UTC
(In reply to Alexandre Franke from comment #4)
> “Interesting” related issue (side effect?): currently there is a bug
> (#1574222) which makes it so that after an upgrade to F28 the language packs
> are not installed as they should (glibc-language-* missing amongst other
> things) and one cannot launch the terminal to debug the issue.

I confirm, see bug 1570924.

Comment 6 Fedora End Of Life 2018-05-29 12:10:31 UTC
Fedora 26 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2018-05-29. Fedora 26
is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any
further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

Comment 7 Jan Kurik 2018-08-14 10:18:50 UTC
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 29 development cycle.
Changing version to '29'.

Comment 8 Miguel Angel Ajo 2018-11-02 21:36:08 UTC
I confirm, I'm hitting it now, it wasn't the case minutes ago.

I don't know what changed.

Comment 9 Debarshi Ray 2018-11-06 14:12:19 UTC
Bug 1574222 ?

Comment 10 Georg Sauthoff 2018-11-07 09:35:20 UTC
(In reply to Debarshi Ray from comment #9)
> Bug 1574222 ?

What is the question?

What info do you need?

Comment 11 Ben Cotton 2019-10-31 18:59:42 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 29 is nearing its end of life.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 29 on 2019-11-26.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a
Fedora 'version' of '29'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 29 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 12 Ben Cotton 2019-11-27 23:09:15 UTC
Fedora 29 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2019-11-26. Fedora 29 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.


Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.