Command-Line Server Locale Issue – How to Fix

command linelocaleserver

I am getting this message every time I do something like starting or stopping a service.

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.   
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:   
        LANGUAGE = "en_US:en",   
        LC_ALL = (unset),   
        LC_MESSAGES = "en_US.UTF-8",   
        LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"   
    are supported and installed on your system.   
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").   
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_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory   
(Reading database ... 21173 files and directories currently installed.)  
Removing bind9 ...  
 * Stopping domain name service... bind9                                        [ OK ]
Processing triggers for man-db ...   
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_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory

How do I fix this error ?

Best Answer

First run locale to list what locales currently defined for the current user account:

$ locale
LANG=C
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE=fi_FI.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE=fi_FI.UTF-8
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES=fi_FI.UTF-8
LC_PAPER="C"
LC_NAME="C"
LC_ADDRESS="C"
LC_TELEPHONE="C"
LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
LC_ALL=

Then generate the missing locale and reconfigure locales to take notice:

$ sudo locale-gen "en_US.UTF-8"
Generating locales...
  en_US.UTF-8... done
Generation complete.

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
Generating locales...
  en_US.UTF-8... up-to-date
Generation complete.

Now you will not see any errors anymore!

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