BUG #18795: Norwegian bokmål crashes again

PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:

I downloaded the latest installer for windows and tried to install a local
database server with locale Norwegian Bokmål. Looks like this bug is back in
version 17? Or maybe it's windows 11 that is causing it?

Sigh, did they rename it again? Our last commit log entry about
this explains

It emerges that recent versions of Windows (at least 2016 Standard)
spell this locale name as "Norwegian Bokmål_Norway.1252", defeating
our mapping code that translates "Norwegian (Bokmål)_Norway" to
something that's all-ASCII (cf commits db29620d4 and aa1d2fc5e).
Add another mapping entry to handle this spelling.

Can you identify how it's spelled in W11? Also, what failure
are you seeing *exactly*?

regards, tom lane

I wrote:

PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:

I downloaded the latest installer for windows and tried to install a local
database server with locale Norwegian Bokmål. Looks like this bug is back in
version 17? Or maybe it's windows 11 that is causing it?

Sigh, did they rename it again?

Oh, never mind that. I'd forgotten about this recent change:

<para>
Disallow locale names containing non-ASCII characters (Thomas Munro)
</para>

<para>
This is only an issue on Windows, as such locale names are not used
elsewhere. They are problematic because it's quite unclear what
encoding such names are represented in (since the locale itself
defines the encoding to use). In
recent <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> releases, an abort in
the Windows runtime library could occur because of confusion about
that.
</para>

<para>
Anyone who encounters the new error message should either create a
new duplicated locale with an ASCII-only name using Windows Locale
Builder, or consider using BCP 47-compliant locale names
like <literal>tr-TR</literal>.
</para>

So your fix is to specify the locale explicitly to initdb,
along the lines of "--locale=no-NO" (I'm guessing about the
Norwegian locale to use, but it's probably close to that).

Was the error you got not sufficiently clear about this?

regards, tom lane

Nope, I had to dig into the logs to figure out what was wrong. I was just
running the assisted installer. From there it became clear it was initdb
that was failing. There's no "free text" alternative field to input locale,
it's only possible to choose from a drop down. Ideally it would be possible
to input that by ourselves (or just replace the drop-down value with the
correct one).
Regards Øystein (good luck trying to install Python with Ø in your Windows
home folder btw).

On Wed, 5 Feb 2025, 17:22 Tom Lane, <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

On Wed, Feb 5, 2025 at 3:41 PM PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org>
wrote:

The following bug has been logged on the website:

Bug reference: 18795
Logged by: Øystein Monsrud Arneson
Email address: oystein.arneson@cloudberries.no
PostgreSQL version: 17.2
Operating system: Windows
Description:

I downloaded the latest installer for windows and tried to install a local
database server with locale Norwegian Bokmål. Looks like this bug is back
in
version 17? Or maybe it's windows 11 that is causing it?
Either way I can't from that link figure out how to install properly with
an
alias instead:
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Changes_To_Norwegian_Locale

Hi,

We are working on a fix for this issue of locales containing non-ascii
characters and prepared a *test/snapshot installer*.
Can you please test this installer and let us know if it works?
https://get.enterprisedb.com/test-installers/postgresql-17.2-0.0snapshot13154625551.1107.1.f6efa78.3-windows-x64.exe

=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=98ystein_Monsrud_Arneson?= <oystein.arneson@cloudberries.no> writes:

Nope, I had to dig into the logs to figure out what was wrong. I was just
running the assisted installer. From there it became clear it was initdb
that was failing. There's no "free text" alternative field to input locale,
it's only possible to choose from a drop down.

Got it. Sounds like EDB is working on improving the installer though,
would you help them test it?

regards, tom lane

On Thu, Feb 6, 2025 at 5:23 AM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

So your fix is to specify the locale explicitly to initdb,
along the lines of "--locale=no-NO" (I'm guessing about the
Norwegian locale to use, but it's probably close to that).

I guess it should be nb-NO for Bokmål (cf nn-NO for Nynorsk)?