UI language changed into unknown language, and will not change back to English

[Louana van Luttervelt]

Inkscape Version 0.48.1
Mac OS X Version 10.6.8

I have been using Inkscape for about a year (an older version) without any problems, in English. Today I opened my older version Inkscape and suddenly most of my interface language had changed into an unknown language (I think it's Turkish). Some things were still in English but most of it was in the unknown language and it was hard to navigate through Inkscape.

I decided to get rid of my Inkscape and downloaded the 0.48.1 version from the Inkscape website. The new Inkscape had even more of the interface in the same unknown language. On Inkscape forums I found how to change the interface language in the settings, and even though it was hard to find the settings in the unknown language I changed it back to English.

I restarted Inkscape. Still in unknown language.
Restarted my Mac. Still in unknown language.
Threw away Inkscape again and downloaded anew from the website. Still in unknown language.
Changed the interface language in settings. Restarted Inkscape and Mac. Still in unknown language.

Help, please :).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

1) Inkscape normally picks up the language from the Mac OS X System Preferences: 'Language & Text > Language > Order for sorted lists' (lower right corner). Can you check that system setting and - if it was changed to some other language - set it back to English, or General? Usually that change should take effect next time you relaunch Inkscape, but sometimes it might require to log out and back in again (or restart your Mac).

2) It is odd though that manually overriding the UI language inside Inkscape doesn't work for you either. On a normal system, choosing the language explicitly in Inkscape's setting does override the language picked up from the system settings, and it does stick across Inkscape sessions. Had there been any other changes to your system or account at the time the UI language in Inkscape changed? You could try to reset Inkscape's preferences, so that Inkscape recreates the preferences file with new default values:

1) Quit Inkscape, open a new Finder window
2) use menu 'Go > Go to Folder…'
3) in the dialog, that prompts for the path to the new folder, enter this string:
~/.config/inkscape
4) the Finder will display the contents of that folder: select the file 'preferences.xml' and rename it or move it out of the folder (e.g. onto your desktop)
5) restart Inkscape

Does the issue still persist? If so, try again to manually set the interface language to 'English' in Inkscape's preferences and restart Inkscape.

Notes:
- deleting and reinstalling Inkscape does not remove the preferences settings: the file remains on your system because normally you do not want to lose your settings when upgrading to a newer version
- the preferences for Inkscape are stored in a 'hidden' folder (its path/name starts with a '.' (dot)), and Apple's Finder doesn't show hidden folders normally, though you can still access them as described with 'Go > Go to Folder…'.

Most likely another duplicate of
Bug #617079 “Turkish menu bar, I need English”
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/617079>

It's unclear what triggers that issue (the system returns an unexpected language setting to Inkscape, as far as I could tell based on the provided information there's nothing wrong in Inkscape's code itself). For most other users the problem seemed to disappear after (several) reboots of the Mac ), and none so far reported that overriding the setting in Inkscape for the interface language doesn't work either.

[Louana van Luttervelt (theloulogue)]

Thanks! Problem solved.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> Thanks! Problem solved.

Did it suddenly work after a reboot, did you have to change the System preferences, or did it work to override the interface language by changing Inkscape's preferences?

[Louana van Luttervelt (theloulogue)]

I actually solved it before I read your response.

I tried manually overriding the UI language to English inside Inkscape several times with no effect. I also tried to change it to Dutch without effect.

Second time I tried to change it to Dutch, before rebooting Inkscape I also went to the spell check tab in the Inkscape settings. The spell check language boxes were all set to an unknown language, without a drop down menu to change language. So I tried deleting the content in all 3 boxes, which did not show a change. But after rebooting after this, Inkscape was completely in Dutch.

Tried to manually change the language back to English, but that would not work unless I tried to delete spell check languages. I don't know why, but at least my Inkscape was back to English.

Later I received your reply and checked the language settings in my Mac, as you suggested. And indeed there were several of unknown languages in that list, including Turkish. I've deleted them now.

Inkscape is still in English :).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Linking as duplicate to Bug #617079 - please add a comment and revert the duplicate status if you don't agree and think these are different issues.