encoding UTF8 does not match locale en_US; the chosen LC_CTYPE setting requires encoding LATIN1

While trying to install opennms :

/usr/share/opennms/bin/install -l /usr/local/lib -dis

I get the error:

> ERROR: encoding UTF8 does not match locale en_US Detail: The chosen LC_CTYPE setting requires encoding LATIN1.

and I'm not sure how to proceed, as I've tried creating the DB several different ways (see below).

Full log:

==============================================================================
OpenNMS Installer
==============================================================================

Configures PostgreSQL tables, users, and other miscellaneous settings.

- searching for jicmp:
  - trying to load /usr/local/lib/libjicmp.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jni/libjicmp.so: OK
- searching for jicmp6:
  - trying to load /usr/local/lib/libjicmp6.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jni/libjicmp6.so: OK
- searching for jrrd:
  - trying to load /usr/local/lib/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jni/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jni/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0_34/jre/lib/amd64/server/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0_34/jre/lib/amd64/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.6.0_34/jre/../lib/amd64/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/share/opennms/lib/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/share/opennms/lib/linux64/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/java/packages/lib/amd64/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib64/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /lib64/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /lib/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/jni/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/lib/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /usr/local/lib/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /opt/NMSjicmp/lib/32/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /opt/NMSjicmp/lib/64/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /opt/NMSjicmp6/lib/32/libjrrd.so: NO
  - trying to load /opt/NMSjicmp6/lib/64/libjrrd.so: NO
- Failed to load the optional jrrd library.
  - This error is not fatal, since jrrd is only required for optional features.
  - For more information, see http://www.opennms.org/index.php/jrrd
- using SQL directory... /usr/share/opennms/etc
- using create.sql... /usr/share/opennms/etc/create.sql
* using 'postgres' as the PostgreSQL user for OpenNMS
* using 'opennms' as the PostgreSQL database name for OpenNMS
Exception in thread "main" org.opennms.core.schema.MigrationException: an error occurred creating the OpenNMS database
	at org.opennms.core.schema.Migrator.createDatabase(Migrator.java:428)
	at org.opennms.core.schema.Migrator.prepareDatabase(Migrator.java:444)
	at org.opennms.install.Installer.install(Installer.java:236)
	at org.opennms.install.Installer.main(Installer.java:949)
Caused by: org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: encoding UTF8 does not match locale en_US
  Detail: The chosen LC_CTYPE setting requires encoding LATIN1.
	at org.postgresql.core.v3.QueryExecutorImpl.receiveErrorResponse(QueryExecutorImpl.java:2102)
	at org.postgresql.core.v3.QueryExecutorImpl.processResults(QueryExecutorImpl.java:1835)
	at org.postgresql.core.v3.QueryExecutorImpl.execute(QueryExecutorImpl.java:257)
	at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2Statement.execute(AbstractJdbc2Statement.java:500)
	at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2Statement.executeWithFlags(AbstractJdbc2Statement.java:374)
	at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2Statement.execute(AbstractJdbc2Statement.java:366)
	at org.opennms.core.schema.Migrator.createDatabase(Migrator.java:425)
	... 3 more

List of databases:

   Name    |  Owner   | Encoding | Collate | Ctype |   Access privileges   
-----------+----------+----------+---------+-------+-----------------------
 postgres  | postgres | LATIN1   | en_US   | en_US | 
 rhq       | rhqadmin | LATIN1   | en_US   | en_US | 
 template0 | postgres | LATIN1   | en_US   | en_US | =c/postgres          +
           |          |          |         |       | postgres=CTc/postgres
 template1 | postgres | LATIN1   | en_US   | en_US | =c/postgres          +
           |          |          |         |       | postgres=CTc/postgres
(4 rows)

I have used the following 3 initdb options but none of them work

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -E UTF-8 --pgdata=/usr/local/pgsql/data

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -E LATIN1 --pgdata=/usr/local/pgsql/data

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -E en_US.UTF8  --pgdata=/usr/local/pgsql/data

Also, do i need to delete all data in /usr/local/pgsql/data before i use initdb ?

appending locale command stdout:

$locale

LANG=en_US
LANGUAGE=en_US:
LC_CTYPE="en_US"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US"
LC_TIME="en_US"
LC_COLLATE="en_US"
LC_MONETARY="en_US"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US"
LC_PAPER="en_US"
LC_NAME="en_US"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US"
LC_ALL=

I am answering this because nothing from StackOverFlow worked for me.

I combined two solutions from other sites that did the job (this answer works for Ubuntu server 12.04 and PGSQL 9.1):

Create a file:

nano /etc/profile.d/lang.sh

Add the following

export LANGUAGE="en_US.UTF-8"
export LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

Save it

Restart shell or run all export commands manually in current shell instance

Reconfigure so the encoding can be UTF8 ([got it from here][1])

sudo su postgres

psql

update pg_database set datistemplate=false where datname='template1';
drop database Template1;
create database template1 with owner=postgres encoding='UTF-8'

  lc_collate='en_US.utf8' lc_ctype='en_US.utf8' template template0;

update pg_database set datistemplate=true where datname='template1';

Use template1 for db creation.

I hope this helps ;)

Thanks for locale output. OpenNMS seems to be using your en_US (non-UTF-8) locale in order to create postgres db, and this is wrong. This should work:

export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
locale   # confirm that it shows only en_US.UTF-8 for all settings
# finally, run your opennms installer
/usr/share/opennms/bin/install -l /usr/local/lib -dis

this worked for me:

CREATE DATABASE mydb WITH ENCODING='UTF8' LC_CTYPE='en_US.UTF-8' LC_COLLATE='en_US.UTF-8' OWNER=postgres TEMPLATE=template0 CONNECTION LIMIT=-1;

This is happening because your system is setup to use Latin1 encoding instead of UTF-8. Your language is set correctly to en_US, but the encoding is not set to UTF-8. Try running this:$

localedef -v -c -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8

This will set tell all of your applications that are installed after the change (i think) to use the English language with unicode encoding. More information can be found here: https://www.linux.com/learn/docs/ldp/790-Unicode-HOWTO#s3

I had a similar issue so I:

1. aptitude purge postresql ...
2. localedef -v -c -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8
3. aptitude install postresql ....

and then postregsql knew to set itself to use the english language with unicode encoding.

Of course, you could do this on a per database basis as described here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/multibyte.html

I have the same error:

ERROR:  new collation (en_US.utf8) is incompatible with the collation of the template database (en_US.UTF-8)
HINT:  Use the same collation as in the template database, or use template0 as template.

Solution:

dpkg-reconfigure locales (choose en_US.UTF-8)  

then:

sudo -u postgres psql  

postgres=# update pg_database set datistemplate=false where datname='template1';  
UPDATE 1  
postgres=# drop database Template1;  
DROP DATABASE  
postgres=# create database template1 with owner=postgres encoding='UTF-8'  
postgres-# lc_collate='en_US.utf8' lc_ctype='en_US.utf8' template template0;  
CREATE DATABASE  
postgres=# update pg_database set datistemplate=true where datname='template1';  
UPDATE 1  

Test:

postgres=# CREATE DATABASE Person  
    WITH 
    OWNER = Person  
    ENCODING = 'UTF8'  
    LC_COLLATE = 'en_US.utf8'  
    LC_CTYPE = 'en_US.utf8'  
    TABLESPACE = pg_default  
    CONNECTION LIMIT = -1;  
CREATE DATABASE 

It works :)

Change the locales and languages of SO for compatibilty with BD.

dpkg-reconfigure locales

enjoy!

I meet the similar error. old database LC_CTYPE is UTF-8, but new one is en_US.UTF-8, I solve the problem after reinit database.

initdb --pgdata=/path/to/postgresql -E utf8

You should choice the right -E parameter

I have had the "same issue" while installing odoo. Turns out that before installing odoo you have to configure locale

export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

And then configuler locale with UTF-8 BUT you have to configure locale before posgres installation.