bash formula warns about LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (): Bad file descriptor

[supriyo-biswas]

Output of brew config

$ brew config 
HOMEBREW_VERSION: 4.5.12
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
HEAD: 50fa89e96bccedeca21287427eb7db12289f57ea
Last commit: 2 days ago
Branch: stable
Core tap JSON: 26 Jul 05:39 UTC
Core cask tap JSON: 26 Jul 05:39 UTC
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /opt/homebrew
HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS: []
HOMEBREW_MAKE_JOBS: 8
Homebrew Ruby: 3.4.5 => /opt/homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/3.4.5/bin/ruby
CPU: octa-core 64-bit arm_firestorm_icestorm
Clang: 17.0.0 build 1700
Git: 2.39.5 => /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/git
Curl: 8.7.1 => /usr/bin/curl
macOS: 15.5-arm64
CLT: 16.4.0.0.1.1747106510
Xcode: N/A
Rosetta 2: false

Output of brew doctor

$ brew doctor
Please note that these warnings are just used to help the Homebrew maintainers
with debugging if you file an issue. If everything you use Homebrew for is
working fine: please don't worry or file an issue; just ignore this. Thanks!

Warning: Some installed casks are deprecated or disabled.
You should find replacements for the following casks:
  microsoft-remote-desktop

### Description of issue

When launching bash from homebrew, I get the following warning after running each bash command:

$ /opt/homebrew/bin/bash --login
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (): Bad file descriptor
$ [/opt/homebrew/bin/bash shell]

I've tried toggling the Terminal.app setting under Profiles > Advanced > Set locale environment variables at startup, but the same warning remains.

The issue occurred after a recent upgrade of the brew packages, although I'm unable to recall the previous versions of bash and its dependencies etc.

[carlocab]

Can't reproduce, I'm afraid. What's the output of locale when you run it outside of Homebrew bash?

[httpstorm]

@carlocab
I also started getting a related error since I updated bash from 5.2.37 to 5.3.3 today:

-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_COLLATE: cannot change locale (): No such file or directory

locale
LANG=""
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_CTYPE="UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_ALL=
-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_COLLATE: cannot change locale (): No such file or directory

While the workaround is to set LC_COLLATE or LANG in .profile, by default they are not set, so the new version of bash is broken in the default configuration and needs a fix.

# ~/.profile
export LC_COLLATE=C

System Settings, General, Language & Region, Preferred Languages is set to

• English (UK)
• Bulgarian

[osalbahr]

That is strange. My $LANG is set by default and I do not set it in any of my rc files:

% echo $LANG             
en_US.UTF-8
% grep 'LANG' ~/.* 2>/dev/null
% 

[httpstorm]

I also don't set LANG or any of the LC_ environment variables and LANG isn't set by default. I use MacBook Pro 2019 16" Intel, macOS 15.5. One possible explanation is that I have multiple Preferred Languages. Perhaps bash can't decide which one to use?
I noticed that your prompt is % which is common for zsh. The default prompt in bash is $ for user and # for root.

[osalbahr]

You're right, I was on zsh. Maybe I shouldn't assume that the locale environment variables would be the same. I changed Terminal settings to start with command /opt/homebrew/bin/bash and I still have LANG set:

$ echo $0
-bash
$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8

[httpstorm]

I see the following differences:

1. You are using a Mac with Apple silicon, I use Intel
2. You likely have English (US) as the only item under Preferred Languages
3. You have configured Terminal with Command, I have changed the default shell

# Edit /etc/shells
sudo nano /etc/shells

# Add the following line at the end
/usr/local/bin/bash

# Change the default shell to bash, and exit
chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

# Note: for Apple silicon, the path to bash is
/opt/homebrew/bin/bash

I use the following Terminal settings:

• General, Shells open with
• Default login shell (selected)
• Profiles, Shell, Startup
• Run command (unchecked)
• Profiles, Advanced, International
  Text encoding = Unicode (UTF-8)

My guess would be 2.
What does it say under System Settings, General, Language & Region, Preferred Languages?

[lightbulbjim]

Can reproduce:

~ $ echo $SHELL
/usr/local/bin/bash
-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (): Bad file descriptor

~ $ echo $BASH_VERSION
5.3.3(1)-release
-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (): Bad file descriptor

~ $ locale
LANG="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_CTYPE="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=
-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (): Bad file descriptor

And with the stock system Bash:

~ $ /bin/bash

~ $ echo $BASH_VERSION
3.2.57(1)-release

~ $ locale
LANG="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_CTYPE="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_AU.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

[gwd]

FWIW, adding the following to my .bashrc silences the warnings:

eval $(locale)

This effectively sets LC_CTYPE based on whatever the current value of LANG is (and to "C" if it's empty). No idea if this is a good approach or not.