How to fix 'character map file `UTF-8' not found'

Question

I'm setting up a UBI rhel8 container. I need to execute this command:

localedef -f UTF-8 -i en_US en_US.UTF-8

which failed with:

character map file `UTF-8' not found: No such file or directory
cannot read character map directory `/usr/share/i18n/charmaps': No such file or directory

score 32 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 02 '19 at 11:05

32

You need to install these packages

yum -y install glibc-locale-source glibc-langpack-en

and then re-run localedef command

answered Dec 02 '19 at 11:05

Mina Alber

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Had to reboot like two times. – Tomas Gonzalez Apr 07 '20 at 16:55
Be aware, that `gzip` was removed from UBI Images that might fail `localedef` (see https://access.redhat.com/solutions/6540691 for details) – Marc Schmid Feb 14 '23 at 13:01

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 15 '21 at 20:16

9

On Debian/Ubuntu, I was able to solve this via apt install locales.

answered Oct 15 '21 at 20:16

Tobias J

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But this is about ubi8 images which are redhat specific. – zokkker13 Jun 14 '22 at 06:51

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited May 10 '22 at 02:30

2

I ran into this same symptom (locale-gen can't find charmap files) after upgrading from Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04 in WSL 1. The problem is that there is a bug in WSL 1 that prevents gunzip from running. This is a problem for locale-gen because, at least in Ubuntu 22.04, the charmap files in /usr/share/i18n/charmaps are stored in GZip *.gz format. Apparently, locale-gen depends on gunzip to unzip the charmap files, and when it can't run it, it is stuck.

The solution was

copy UTF-8.gz to the Windows filesystem
unzip it to UTF-8 with a Windows tool (such as 7-zip)
copy UTF-8 back to /usr/share/i18n/charmaps

Then locale-gen worked correctly.

edited May 10 '22 at 02:30

Josh

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answered Apr 30 '22 at 16:57

AlbertB

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Thanks for the tip, I encountered same issue when run `localedef -i zh_CN -f UTF-8 zh_CN.UTF-8` in docker container (`opensuse/leap:latest`). And then I installed gzip in the container after see your tip, then `localedef` successfully generated locale file. – LiuYan 刘研 Jun 09 '22 at 09:01

How to fix 'character map file `UTF-8' not found'

3 Answers3