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Installation issues with Postgres on Ubuntu 24.x
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Description
Reported via email - the user followed our installation instructions to install on "Ubuntu 24" and encountered the error:
PG::InvalidParameterValue: ERROR: new encoding (UTF8) is incompatible
with the encoding of the template database (SQL_ASCII)
They identified the problem:
FIRST, you have to install an encoding that includes UTF-8 using
dpkg-reconfigure locales
(for example,de_DE.UTF-8)
If you haven't done that, the aforementioned error occurs.
If you have done it, the database is created with the correct encoding.
Once the problem exists, the only solution is to completely uninstall and reinstall PostgreSQL.
Please add dpkg-reconfigure locales -> UTF8 to the documentation
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Locate the installation documentation for Ubuntu and read the surrounding PostgreSQL setup steps first. Update it to mention running dpkg-reconfigure locales with a UTF-8 locale before database creation, then verify the instructions explain how this prevents the reported encoding error.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- postgres, ubuntu
- Domain
- databases, documentation
- Issue type
- Documentation
- Difficulty
- 1/5
- Estimated time
- Under an hour
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 52/100