7.10: en_CA causes KDE apps to fail to start

This actually prevents kde/xwindows from starting at all, it gets to 'Initializing services', then quits and goes back to the login screen.

Removing language-pack-kde-en and language-pack-kde-en-base fixes this as well.

It seems rather stupid that a language error would cause a complete failure of kde.

Nothing fixes this for me. I have reinstalled all sorts of packages and removed the language-packs but nothing has fixed it so far.

I too had this issue and removing the language-pack-kde-en (-base) seemed to restore functionality.

Try using qt-language-selector and rebooting after that. It solved for me.

On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 3:55 AM, David Grant <email address hidden> wrote:

> Nothing fixes this for me. I have reinstalled all sorts of packages and
> removed the language-packs but nothing has fixed it so far.
>
> --
> 7.10: en_CA causes KDE apps to fail to start
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/191327
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Source Package "kdelibs" in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: kdelibs
>
> after language updates of 2008.02.12, if language is set to en_CA,
> launching kde apps results in an error like this:
>
> ejortegau@unification:~$ konqueror
> kdecore (KLocale): WARNING: Definition of PluralForm is none of
> NoPlural/TwoForms/French/OneTwoRest/Russian/Polish/Slovenian/Lithuanian/Czech/Slovak/Arabic/Balcan/Macedonian/Gaeilge/Maltese:
> Definition of PluralForm - to be set by the translator of kdelibs.po
> kdeinit: Communication error with launcher. Exiting!
> kdecore (KLocale): WARNING: Definition of PluralForm is none of
> NoPlural/TwoForms/French/OneTwoRest/Russian/Polish/Slovenian/Lithuanian/Czech/Slovak/Arabic/Balcan/Macedonian/Gaeilge/Maltese:
> Definition of PluralForm - to be set by the translator of kdelibs.po
>
> Not only happens with konqueror, but also kopete, kwin, and probably a lot
> others. Fixed by using qt-language-selector to set it to en_US.
>

--
Eduardo J. Ortega U.

Confirm that removing the language-pack-kde-en-(base) works as well.

When I attempted to run qt-language-selector this happened:

$ sudo qt-language-selector
[sudo] password for fuji:
QMutex::lock: Deadlock detected in thread 47107833284320
Killed

I had to `sudo kill -9` the process as ctrl^c wasn't working.

wow. That didn't happen here. Weird.

On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Fuji <email address hidden> wrote:

> Confirm that removing the language-pack-kde-en-(base) works as well.
>
> When I attempted to run qt-language-selector this happened:
>
> $ sudo qt-language-selector
> [sudo] password for fuji:
> QMutex::lock: Deadlock detected in thread 47107833284320
> Killed
>
> I had to `sudo kill -9` the process as ctrl^c wasn't working.
>
> --
> 7.10: en_CA causes KDE apps to fail to start
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/191327
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Source Package "kdelibs" in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: kdelibs
>
> after language updates of 2008.02.12, if language is set to en_CA,
> launching kde apps results in an error like this:
>
> ejortegau@unification:~$ konqueror
> kdecore (KLocale): WARNING: Definition of PluralForm is none of
> NoPlural/TwoForms/French/OneTwoRest/Russian/Polish/Slovenian/Lithuanian/Czech/Slovak/Arabic/Balcan/Macedonian/Gaeilge/Maltese:
> Definition of PluralForm - to be set by the translator of kdelibs.po
> kdeinit: Communication error with launcher. Exiting!
> kdecore (KLocale): WARNING: Definition of PluralForm is none of
> NoPlural/TwoForms/French/OneTwoRest/Russian/Polish/Slovenian/Lithuanian/Czech/Slovak/Arabic/Balcan/Macedonian/Gaeilge/Maltese:
> Definition of PluralForm - to be set by the translator of kdelibs.po
>
> Not only happens with konqueror, but also kopete, kwin, and probably a lot
> others. Fixed by using qt-language-selector to set it to en_US.
>

--
Eduardo J. Ortega U.

I was able to recover another system doing the following:
1. Login in to recovery mode
2. run sudo qt-language-select --mode select
3. select appropriate language, in my case en-US
4. reboot

I experienced the same symptoms after the update. Removing the language pack fixed it (language-pack-kde-en).

I have experienced the problem also.

the symptom I observed: the login screen was coming back after normal login. The error was not evident.
.xsession_errors contained something similar as level15 first reported for this bug.

the "qt-language-selector --mode select" workaround works for me too

Ran into this problem on all my Kubuntu systems. Had to switch to Gnome until I found this thread. :) Thanks for the work-arounds mentioned above.

- Installing KDE4 (as per http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-4.0.1.php) was no help. KDE4 started just fine (from KDM3), but problem persisted with KDE3 apps.

- Running "qt-language-select --mode select" as mentioned above resulted in the "QMutex::lock: Deadlock detected in thread" error. Got no further. No help.

- Removing "language-pack-kde-en" immediately re-enabled KDE3 apps (k3b, ktorrent, etc.). (No logout/login or reboot necessary.)

FWIW

Had this error surface today. I was able to use:

qt-language-select --mode select

but a reboot was required.

Confirming, this happen after upgrade of "language-pack-kde-en", after removing it together with "language-pack-kde-en-base" fixes the KDE start, no reboot required.

Thank you for your reports and sorry for all this trouble. We will fix this immediately.

Do all of you use Canadian English? Or does anybody experience this with other English countries (or even other languages) as well?

The cause has been identified: Some Canadian English translator actually translated a plural form definition message against the prominent warning:

msgid ""
"_: Dear translator, please do not translate this string in any form, but "
"pick the _right_ value out of NoPlural/TwoForms/French... If not sure what "
"to do mail <email address hidden> and <email address hidden>, they will tell you. Better leave "
"that out if unsure, the programs will crash!!\n"
"Definition of PluralForm - to be set by the translator of kdelibs.po"
msgstr "Definition of PluralForm - to be set by the translator of kdelibs.po"

I verified that en_CA is the only affected language.

Just to answer Martin Pitt 's Questionl;

 I use Canadian English and have Canadian French (I live in a multilingual town but don't speak a word of French) installed in case I need to use it. Also in Open Office I use UK English since Canadian English does not seem to exist for that software.

I uploaded a fixed version, it should be available in about two hours.

For everyone who is affected by this and cannot log into the graphical environment any more, you can do the following steps to recover:

  * Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to a text console
  * Log in (type username, enter, password, enter)
  * run "sudo apt-get update" and enter your password
  * run "sudo apt-get upgrade".

The last step should fetch the updated language-pack-kde-en-base. Please let me know if you still have troubles.

Thank you and sorry again for the inconvenience!

language-pack-kde-en-base (1:7.10+20080205+1) gutsy-updates; urgency=low

  * data/en_CA/LC_MESSAGES/kdelibs.po: Fix definition of plural form.
    (LP: #191327)

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:05:55 +0000

The faulty string has been fixed in Rosetta, so the next automatic language pack update will fix this.

I verified that the dapper, edgy, and feisty updates are not affected by this problem.

Have the updated packages been released for 8.04? I'm still not seeing them on the various mirrors I use.

PraysToPan [2008-02-27 22:10 -0000]:
> Have the updated packages been released for 8.04? I'm still not seeing
> them on the various mirrors I use.

Only for 7.10 so far, not yet for 8.04.

--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

My 5 today: #180364 (ocamlnet, pkg-create-dbgsym), #146434 (xchat-gnome,
xchat), #186569 (glib2.0), #193971 (tmispell-voikko), #152803 (belocs-
locales-bin)
Do 5 a day - every day! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day

I would like to add an observation even though a cause of the problem has been listed here.
I have recently updated 5 machines running Kubuntu 7.10 but only 2 of them had the severe problem that required remediation, one running the x86 kernel the other the x86_64 kernel. (and all machines with 'Canada' locale).
I noticed something irregular when looking at the contents of the directory of the first machine that broke:
/var/cache/apt/archives.
Normally every package has a unique identifier, even though some apparently are installed in two parts, and have a '-1' and '-2' designation.
However, for the KDE English language packs (that is, 'language-pack-kde-en' and 'language-pack-kde-base') there were duplicate entries, one with the 2007 time stamp and one with the newer 2008 time stamp.
When I rescued KDE (working through a different window manager), it appears that running 'apt-get remove language-pack-kde-en' cleared out the older (2007) version of the 2 language packs while leaving the 2008 version.
So there may (at least in some cases) be more to this bug then what is described in Martin Pitt's post above.

Hardy got new language packs now, too.

David,

you can only ever have one version (what you call "unique identifier") of a package installed. What you see in /var/cache/apt/archives is just a temporary download place where apt and other package tools download packages to before they get installed. This directory generally has multiple versions of a package (you can use "apt-get autoclean" to get rid of older ones and free some space).

Uninstalling a package with "apt-get remove" does not remove the downloaded .deb package from the cache.