SOLVED How to add "server" locales

imc67

I installed Moodle, configured it for the Dutch (Nederlands) language it seems to work except things like days/months. There is also a warning in the Moodle GUI like: your server doesn't support English (en) or Dutch (nl).

When I SSH into the server and command 'locale' it says:

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

What can I do to make nl_NL.UTF-8 available in the app (without changing the server wide language)?

atrilahiji

This post is deleted!

atrilahiji

@imc67 Moodle documented this it seems: https://docs.moodle.org/310/en/Language_FAQ#I.27ve_set_a_default_site_language.2C_but_the_Moodle_calendar_is_in_English._Why.3F

As for setting the locale in the container, this might help?: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28405902/how-to-set-the-locale-inside-a-debian-ubuntu-docker-container

Can't say I've tried.

nebulon

I haven't tried that myself, however you should not change the locale on the server as such. It will also have no effect on the app instance in question. You would have to change it inside the container and it looks like, that the app package needs some tweaking to support changing it in a persistent way as well as regenerating locale assets after changing.

imc67

@nebulon indeed I've added the nl_NL.UTF-8 locale as an extra locale to the server (not the default!):

sudo locale-gen nl_NL.UTF-8
Generating locales (this might take a while)...
  nl_NL.UTF-8... done
Generation complete.

Restarted the app and same issue.

Inside the app command line I did a locale -a and the result is:

/app/code# locale -a
C
C.UTF-8
POSIX

fbartels

@nebulon said in How to add "server" locales:

You would have to change it inside the container and it looks like, that the app package needs some tweaking to support changing it

Its probably easier to just define some focus languages and to add them directly into the base image. There are some other applications that also depend on system locales so it would imho make not much sense to have an individual locale selection in all apps.

girish

@fbartels said in How to add "server" locales:

Its probably easier to just define some focus languages and to add them directly into the base image

Yes, this is the approach I have taken with some of the packages where I just hardcoded the popular locales (and just add new ones if someone requests it).

imc67

@girish can you please add nl_NL.UTF-8 to this package?

girish

We found that there is a locales-all package that magically has all the locales. Bloats the base image a bit but it benefits all apps.

@imc67 Just testing the new base image with a few apps, will publish moodle once we have the required 'confidence' with the new image.

imc67

@girish GREAT! Thanks you.

girish

@imc67 I updated the package, can you give it a try?

imc67

@girish it doesn’t work

When I do a locale -a I indeed get a huge list with also nl_NL.UTF8

See the difference Moodle expects: nl_NL.UTF-8

Searched and searched but couldn’t find the right solution.

girish

@imc67 How can I reproduce this? I installed dutch language pack and set the language in admin settings and it seems to work?

imc67

@girish right but when you go to calendar/ Kalender then you see English words like February instead of februari

girish

@imc67 true, i see that but the days are in dutch. So, this is probably something in moodle and not locale related (unless you have some strong reason to believe so).

girish

@imc67 Maybe this post - https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=312709 . Which led me to this bug - https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-50364 (it's still not fixed)

imc67

@girish in the Moodle forum every question regarding this issue seemed to be solved, so it doesn’t look like there is a Moodle issue:

https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=390750

I tried some of the solutions but of course get stuck on the ReadOnly situation in the app.

imc67

@girish I see Bitnami solved this in their Docker container with this:

https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-moodle/commit/16f468b9b78528df529c6314043d25a96b690d53

It’s too technical for me but perhaps you can find out if this is also a solution for Cloudron?

girish

@imc67 said in How to add "server" locales:

@girish in the Moodle forum every question regarding this issue seemed to be solved, so it doesn’t look like there is a Moodle issue:

Correct me if I am wrong but I think there are two separate issues we are talking about here. One is there being a warning about "Your server does not support the following languages" (also reported in the forum post you linked). This is the issue you initially had and in the latest base image this should be fixed. I tried installing some language package on moodle and I did not see that warning. Are you still seeing this warning?

The second issue is calendar not being translated. I think this is a moodle issue. Atleast that's what https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-50364 is about. Do you have happen to have a bitnami install where you can check if the calendar is indeed translated. Also, to clarify, for me here only the month names are not translated. Everything else including day of the week is translated to dutch.

girish

@imc67 OK, I found more info here

https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-moodle/issues/120
https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Translation_FAQ#The_month_names_and_days_are_displayed_in_English._How_can_I_translate_them.3F

Those do point to some Cloudron package issue after all. Let me investigate.

imc67

@girish sorry for only sharing the end result of my search for a solution but indeed you’ve probably followed my path as well. Hope you can find the solution?

girish

@imc67 I have narrowed down the problem atleast. Something is making the whole locale system to not work in the image.


<?php
setlocale(LC_TIME, "C");
echo strftime("%A");
setlocale(LC_TIME, "fi_FI");
echo strftime(" in Finnish is %A,");
setlocale(LC_TIME, "fr_FR");
echo strftime(" in French %A and");
setlocale(LC_TIME, "de_DE");
echo strftime(" in German %A.\n");
?>

The above code simply doesn't translate anything and everything is in english. The code works let's say in https://www.codephponline.com/ correctly.

I have to debug tomorrow as to why php is not detecting locale data properly.

girish

In the base image, the locale date is clearly there.. So, it's something PHP related.

root@bc1f77223f4e:/# date
Mi 10. Feb 08:53:44 UTC 2021
root@bc1f77223f4e:/# export LC_ALL=fi_FI
root@bc1f77223f4e:/# date
ke 10.2.2021 08.54.01 +0000
root@bc1f77223f4e:/# export LC_ALL=fr_FR
root@bc1f77223f4e:/# date
mer. 10 f�vr. 2021 08:54:10 UTC

girish

To make matters even more interesting, PHP CLI also works:

# php index.php 
Thursday in Finnish is torstai, in French jeudi and in German Donnerstag.

So, it's something in mod-php .

girish

I found the answer deep deep deep deep in the internet! Wow, I cannot remember the last time I ventured into search result page 7 and actually found it useful

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25411 is the issue which is reported against some rpm based distro. But effectively if modperl is installed, setlocale() in PHP does not work. Crazy! Uninstalling modperl module, does make it work.

girish

@imc67 Great success! Can you try the new package?

imc67

@girish this is IT!! Wow you're the best!

BTW: Moodle is really awesome too, we're going to use it for free e-learnings about art, history and culture in our community.

jdaviescoates

@imc67 @girish I love a happy ending

robi

@imc67 I am still looking to see how awesome it is..

been buggy for me just trying to install a dark theme ;-/

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SOLVED How to add "server" locales