locale-gen --purge stops after purging the locales

[Removed by request]

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 dev with locales 2.13+git20120306-12 and upstart 1.12.1-0ubuntu1 and I have found a combination between locale-gen and upstart to cause some weird behavior. Initially my locales are looking this:

root@ubuntu:~# locale -a
C
C.UTF-8
de_AT.utf8
de_BE.utf8
de_CH.utf8
de_DE.utf8
de_LI.utf8
de_LU.utf8
en_US.utf8
POSIX

Here is an example script (stored in /etc/init/test.conf):

exec locale-gen --purge &

Here is the result:

root@ubuntu:~# start test && sleep 60 && locale -a
test stop/waiting
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_COLLATE to default locale: No such file or directory
C
C.UTF-8
POSIX

locale-gen has purged the locales but something has caused it to stop then. But if I'm forwarding stdout to /dev/null all is working fine. Here is the updated script:

exec locale-gen --purge > /dev/null &

And this is now the result:

root@ubuntu:~# start test && sleep 60 && locale -a
test stop/waiting
C
C.UTF-8
de_AT.utf8
de_BE.utf8
de_CH.utf8
de_DE.utf8
de_LI.utf8
de_LU.utf8
en_US.utf8
POSIX

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Thanks for your report.

Can you please let us know the output of the locale command?

[Removed by request (removed3425744)]

Redirecting the output to a file will cause the same result as redirecting it to /dev/null. In this case the output is "Generating locales...
  de_AT.UTF-8... done
  de_BE.UTF-8... done
  de_CH.UTF-8... done
  de_DE.UTF-8... done
  de_LI.UTF-8... done
  de_LU.UTF-8... done
  en_US.UTF-8... done
Generation complete.
". Maybe you want to try the testcase as descibed in the startpost to see if you are able to reproduce this issue.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

I just run sudo locale-gen --purge on my 14.04 without any issue. You are the one with a problem, and the error messages in the bug description indicate that you have a locale set which is not available on your system, so I ask you again to please let us know the output of the locale command.

[Removed by request (removed3425744)]

> I just run sudo locale-gen --purge on my 14.04 without any issue.

Probably you want to reread the startpost.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Ok, I can reproduce it. Noticed that the environment when running the script gets reduced to:

UPSTART_INSTANCE=
UPSTART_JOB=test
TERM=linux
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin
PWD=/

and that's not sufficient to run locale-gen.

Why on earth do you want to re-generate all locales at boot?

[Removed by request (removed3425744)]

> and that's not sufficient to run locale-gen.

Do you maybe know what is missing and why it works if the output gets redirected?

> Why on earth do you want to re-generate all locales at boot?

Upstart scripts may also be started a long time after the system has booted. I have just found this bug at some point in the past and I'm normally reporting every bug I'm finding.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

On 09/15/2014 09:28 PM, Sworddragon wrote:
>> and that's not sufficient to run locale-gen.
>
> Do you maybe know what is missing and why it works if the output
> gets redirected?

No, I don't. Sorry.

>> Why on earth do you want to re-generate all locales at boot?
>
> Upstart scripts may also be started a long time after the system has
> booted. I have just found this bug at some point in the past and I'm
> normally reporting every bug I'm finding.

I see. Maybe it is a subtle bug, maybe it's expected behaviour. I for one am not able to tell.