Warning: X does not support locale en_US.UTF-8

After application of R2022b_upd5 on linux mint (21.1 Cinammon) I always get the following warning at the startup: Warning: X does not support locale en_US.UTF-8 But the MATLAB has proper "locale" feature:

>> feature('locale')
ans =

struct with fields:

               ctype: 'en_US.UTF-8'
             collate: 'en_US.UTF-8'
                time: 'en_US.UTF-8'
             numeric: 'en_US_POSIX.UTF-8'
            monetary: 'en_US.UTF-8'
            messages: 'en_US.UTF-8'
            encoding: 'UTF-8'
    terminalEncoding: 'UTF-8'
         jvmEncoding: 'UTF-8'
              status: 'MathWorks locale management system initialized.'
             warning: ''

Any idea what is wrong after update5?

[Willi Mutschler]

Same here on Pop!_OS 20.04.

[Atin]

Same problem!

Warning: X does not support locale en_US.UTF-8

MATLAB R2023a

[AM]

same problem on R2023a

[Cheliza]

It's possible that the update may have changed the system's default locale settings or caused a conflict with the current settings.

To resolve this warning, you can try setting the system's locale to en_US.UTF-8 manually using the following command in a terminal:

sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

This should set the system's locale to en_US.UTF-8, which is the same as the MATLAB's locale.

After setting the locale, restart MATLAB and see if the warning persists. If it does, you may need to check if there are any conflicts between the system's locale and MATLAB's locale settings. You can do this by running the following commands in MATLAB:

>> feature('locale')

This will display the current MATLAB locale settings. You can compare these with the system's locale settings using the following command in a terminal:

locale

If there are any differences between the two, you may need to update the system's locale settings to match MATLAB's settings.

[Michal]

@Cheliza Everything (!!!) mentioned in your comment does not work at all.

[Mike Metts]

Why is this still broken? Just installed 2023a Update 2 on Ubuntu 22.04 and I'm getting the warning. Why? It looks like you promised to fix this long ago.

Answer 1

[Michal]

Official TMW statement:

"This is a warning message that can be disregarded and it has no impact on the functionality of MATLAB. A future update for R2022b and R2023a will remove this warning. Using previous updates of R2022b will not display this warning."

[Michal]

R2023a_Update1 ... still the same problem.

[James]

I've just been launching MATLAB now with matlab -r clc

[Michal]

@Jestzer Nice workaround :)

[Rik]

Wouldn't putting that in startup.m also work?

[Russell Sun]

R2023a_Update2 ... still the same problem.

[Chandan Bharti]

facing the same issue in R2023a update2

Answer 2

[James]

This seems to be an issue for R2022b Update 5 and R2023a on any Linux distro. My installs on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, and Arch have all done the same thing after going to Update 5. I have not found a workaround yet and will update this post when I do.

EDIT: The only reasonable workaround I've found is launching MATLAB with matlab -r clc

Answer 3

[Rik]

Isn't X the window management system? That would suggest this is not necessarily related to Matlab itself.

This thread is for Ubuntu, but you can give the commands a try anyway.

Or you could try 1 Google result below, which is a decade old, but is specific to Mint.

[Michal]

Strange is the fact, that this warning appears after R2022b_upd5 and only at Matlab command window.

So, I suspect that is MATLAB related.

[Rik]

Did you try the solutions anyway? Other than that, without reproducing steps there isn't much I can do and you will have to hope that someone who had this same problem found a solution.

[Bryan Paton]

Brand new fresh install of both Ubuntu and Matlab R2022b Update 5 as of March 10 2023 and I get the exact same warning/error first time and every subsequent time I start Matlab. I even tried regenerating the locale profiles based on this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/99651/apt-get-warning-no-support-for-locale-en-us-utf8

with no change.

[Bryan Paton]

Sorry I should add my specific message (differnet locale to OP) is:

Warning: X does not support locale en_AU.UTF-8

Answer 4

[Jim Bosley]

"This is a warning message that can be disregarded and it has no impact on the functionality of MATLAB. A future update for R2022b and R2023a will remove this warning. Using previous updates of R2022b will not display this warning."

The fact that the warning did not appear in previous versions of Matlab, and does now, and that a fix has been promised, but has not been provided, does not bolster confidence in Matlab. It's like a little tag line that says "Hey! We're Matlab! We don't take details seriously!".

And I know that MW DOES take their product seriously. Suggest that this be addressed. A reminder of a bug every time one opens Matlab is not a good look!

[James]

It’s already been fixed in the latest updates for R2022b and R2023a.