GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 670363
Gnome Shell doesn't start when the date contains special characters
Last modified: 2014-04-26 14:44:47 UTC
The desktop fails to initalize when the date contains a special character (like Sábado or Terça), probably due to bad encoding. This bug is blocker because it completely prevent the user from starting the desktop at some days. Most likely all non-US users might have this problem. Version of gnome-shell: 3.2.1-0ubuntu1.1, at Ubuntu Oneiric. Here I'm pasting the .xsession-errors with the relevant output: JS ERROR: !!! Exception was: Error: Failed to convert UTF-8 string to JS string: Sequência de bytes inválida na entrada de conversão JS ERROR: !!! lineNumber = '0' JS ERROR: !!! fileName = '"gjs_throw"' JS ERROR: !!! stack = '"("Failed to convert UTF-8 string to JS string: Sequ\xEAncia de bytes inv\xE1lida na entrada de convers\xE3o")@gjs_throw:0 ("%a, %e de %b, %R:%S")@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/environment.js:75 ()@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/dateMenu.js:208 ([object Object])@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/dateMenu.js:167 DateMenuButton([object Object])@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/dateMenu.js:44 ()@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/panel.js:948 Panel()@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/panel.js:887 start()@/usr/share/gnome-shell/js/ui/main.js:213 @<main>:1 "' JS ERROR: !!! message = '"Failed to convert UTF-8 string to JS string: Sequência de bytes inválida na entrada de conversão"' Aviso do gerenciador de janelas: Log level 32: Execution of main.js threw exception: Error: Failed to convert UTF-8 string to JS string: Sequência de bytes inválida na entrada de conversão /usr/share/themes/Adwaita Dark/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:51: Murrine configuration option "scrollbar_color" is no longer supported and will be ignored. /usr/share/themes/Adwaita Dark/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:61: Murrine configuration option "gradients" is no longer supported and will be ignored. /usr/share/themes/Adwaita Dark/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:61: Murrine configuration option "hilight_ratio" will be deprecated in future releases. Please use "highlight_shade" instead. gnome-session[4028]: WARNING: App 'gnome-shell.desktop' respawning too quickly gnome-session[4028]: CRITICAL: We failed, but the fail whale is dead. Sorry....
So only the date is a problem? I guess there are other accentuated characters in the Shell UI that appear all the time? We've never had such reports, so that definitely doesn't affect all non-US users (using French here). Could you attach your /usr/share/locale/pt/LC_MESSAGES/gnome-shell.mo? (Please replace "pt" with "pt_PT" or "pt_BR" depending on your locale, and tell us which one it is.)
Created attachment 207946 [details] pt_BR gnome-shell.mo
Created attachment 207947 [details] pt gnome-shell.mo
Yes. Aparrently, only the date isn't shown correctly. When I start the "GNOME classic", the special character were shown as a rectangle with a "X" inside it. Surely this problem is related with how the calendar handles non-UTF-8 characters. I solved it changing all occurences of "pt_BR" to "pt_BR.UTF-8" (some didn't had the ".UTF-8" portion) at /etc/default/locale. I bet this is a regression from this bug: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=682141 Also, we have this guy with the same problem (and same locale, too): http://markmail.org/message/qtfze7jptor2yxtb
My GNOME Shell in Czech shows "Ne úno 19, 10:19" (Sun Feb 19, 10:19) today without any problems in Fedora 16.
Thanks for the pointers. Actually, the original problem the Fedora bug deals with is probably https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=508783 (there's a comment about this in the shell_util_format_date() function). But that's not what you're experiencing, since the new code doesn't do that. What looks weird is that shell_util_format_date() calls g_date_time_format(), which is said to always return valid UTF-8. So even if there was a problem with your locale, it should probably not return invalid characters that trigger the exception. > I solved it changing all occurences of "pt_BR" to "pt_BR.UTF-8" > (some didn't had the ".UTF-8" portion) at /etc/default/locale. Isn't that a bug in Ubuntu? Here (on Fedora) I have .utf8 at the end of my locale. So maybe there's also something wrong on this side.
Is this still an issue?
Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for. Thanks!