Language support quits immediately after starting

After some research, it seems like a Python bug. I can reproduce the same problem by running the python3 interpreter:

Python 3.6.5 (default, Apr 1 2018, 05:46:30)
[GCC 7.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import locale
>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_CTYPE, 'en_IL')
'en_IL'
>>> mylocale = locale.getlocale(locale.LC_CTYPE)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/locale.py", line 581, in getlocale
    return _parse_localename(localename)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/locale.py", line 490, in _parse_localename
    raise ValueError('unknown locale: %s' % localename)
ValueError: unknown locale: en_IL
>>>

Thanks for your report!

Right, Python is the culprit; more precisely python and glibc have different ideas about what's a correct locale name.

Probably your /etc/default/locale file includes this line:

LANG=en_IL

To fix this for yourself, open the file for editing and change that line to:

LANG=en_IL.UTF-8

See also bug #1646260. I think I'll fix language-selector so it at least does not crash in cases like this.

This bug was fixed in the package language-selector - 0.189

---------------
language-selector (0.189) cosmic; urgency=medium

  * LanguageSelector/ImConfig.py:
    Prevent crash if LC_CTYPE has a value which Python does not
    understand (LP: #1772237).
  * debian/control:
    Drop obsolete X-Python3-Version field.

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Sun, 20 May 2018 21:56:00 +0200

I was actually hesitating whether or not it makes sense to get this fix into bionic. Yes, the fix is legit and I think this is how it should be in language-selector from the beginning - an invalid locale string should not cause a crash but should be handled as you proposed. I was a bit worried since I think we anyway need to get localechooser fixed, as this fix here will only eliminate the crash - certain new locales still won't work as they should because of the missing codeset component. And every update carries a risk, so potentially we'd like to avoid unnecessary updates.

But... I decided that in this case we should just do it. I might pick up and get localechooser do the right thing, but language-selector binaries are anyway quite small and who knows when we'll encounter the issue again.

Hello Alex, or anyone else affected,

Accepted language-selector into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/language-selector/0.188.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Verified the test case with version 0.188.1 of language-selector-{common,gnome} from bionic-proposed.

Indeed fixes the problem.

This bug was fixed in the package language-selector - 0.188.1

---------------
language-selector (0.188.1) bionic-proposed; urgency=medium

  * LanguageSelector/ImConfig.py:
    Prevent crash if LC_CTYPE has a value which Python does not
    understand (LP: #1772237).
  * debian/control:
    Drop obsolete X-Python3-Version field.

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Sun, 20 May 2018 21:56:00 +0200

The verification of the Stable Release Update for language-selector has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.