Changing Ubuntu locale settings by GUI crashes the accounts-daemon

Question

I'm usung Ubuntu 12.04 and after an automatic update it changed the system default encoding form UTF-8 to "ANSI_X3.4-1968". I realized that when my code comments in Eclipse appeared with strange characters, and after realizing that the IDE was innocent, I've opened a terminal to check. When I type latin characters in a terminal window, such as çãõéèê..., a question mark shows instead. Same is I 'cat' a text file. Changing Ubuntu locale settings by GUI crashes the accounts-daemon:

ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-language-selector
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/gnome-language-selector
...
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 651, in call_blocking      message, timeout)
DBusException: org.freedesktop.Accounts.Error.Failed: running '/usr/share/language-tools/save-to-pam-env' failed: no output

I've then changed the save-to-pam-env adding a debug line and executed the lang-selector in a terminal:

gag@desktop~> /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/gnome-language-selector
(gnome-language-selector:17733): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
    Using the fallback 'C' locale.
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_COLLATE to default locale: No such file or directory
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
    LANGUAGE = (unset),
    LC_ALL = (unset),
    LANG = "pt_BR"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
...same message a dozen times...
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_COLLATE to default locale: No such file or directory
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/LanguageSelector/gtk/GtkLanguageSelector.py:858: UnicodeWarning: Unicode equal comparison failed to convert both arguments to Unicode - interpreting them as being unequal
  self._localeinfo.translate(loc, native=True) == defaultLangName):
  //the line below is my debug 'print'
  exec: /usr/share/language-tools/save-to-pam-env /home/likewise-open/CERTI/gag pt_BR.UTF-8 

So, running this command by hand:

gag@desktop~> /usr/share/language-tools/save-to-pam-env /home/likewise-open/CERTI/gag pt_BR.UTF-8
pt_BR.UTF-8
gag@ccd-7840~> locale
LANG=
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="POSIX"
LC_NUMERIC="POSIX"
LC_TIME="POSIX"
LC_COLLATE="POSIX"
LC_MONETARY="POSIX"
LC_MESSAGES="POSIX"
LC_PAPER="POSIX"
LC_NAME="POSIX"
LC_ADDRESS="POSIX"
LC_TELEPHONE="POSIX"
LC_MEASUREMENT="POSIX"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="POSIX"
LC_ALL=
gag@desktop~> cat .pam_environment 
LANGUAGE=en
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_TIME=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_MONETARY=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_PAPER=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_NAME=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_ADDRESS=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=pt_BR.UTF-8

It all seems fine, but restarting the PC and logging-in back things are still the same. By CLI I can see that the locales are properly installed:

gag@desktop~> locale -a | grep pt
pt_BR.utf8
pt_PT.utf8
gag@desktop~> locale -m | grep UTF
UTF-8

I've also tried:

sudo apt-get install language-pack-pt language-pack-pt-base
sudo apt-get install --reinstall locales

With no effect. When I login with another account the encoding is ok. Ideas?

Answer 1

It turns out that my "~/.pam_environment" config is not being read at all. I've than made a workaround by setting these in my ~/.profile file:

export LC_COLLATE="C"
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_ALL="pt_BR.UTF-8"

Though using LC_ALL is not recommended in the "locale" man entry.

The only cause I could find googli'n arount for .pam_environment being ignored is home dir. encription usyng ecryptfs - and that's not my case.

Anyway, its working, so let it be.