warning "using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems" after R 4.2 update

[xwueyan]

Hi,

I work with multiple locales/languages on Windows, and after my recent update to R 4.2, I keep seeing a warning " using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems" whenever I try to set the system locale (and regardless of what language I try to set it to).

When I revert back to R 4.1.3, the warning doesn't appear.

Can anyone tell me what this warning means and whether there's anyway to get rid of it? Thanks!

> Sys.setlocale("LC_ALL","English")
[1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252"
Warning message:
In Sys.setlocale("LC_ALL", "English") :
  using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems


> sessionInfo()
R version 4.2.0 (2022-04-22 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 22000)

Matrix products: default

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252 
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252   
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                          
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252    
system code page: 65001

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] fansi_1.0.3      assertthat_0.2.1 dplyr_1.0.9      utf8_1.2.2      
 [5] crayon_1.5.1     grid_4.2.0       R6_2.5.1         DBI_1.1.2       
 [9] lifecycle_1.0.1  gtable_0.3.0     magrittr_2.0.3   scales_1.2.0    
[13] ggplot2_3.3.6    pillar_1.7.0     rlang_1.0.2      cli_3.3.0       
[17] generics_0.1.2   vctrs_0.4.1      ellipsis_0.3.2   glue_1.6.2      
[21] purrr_0.3.4      munsell_0.5.0    compiler_4.2.0   pkgconfig_2.0.3 
[25] colorspace_2.0-3 tidyselect_1.1.2 tibble_3.1.7    
> 

[laurens]

hi,

i have the same issue when building r packages.
I tried running

Sys.setlocale("LC_ALL","English.utf8")

in the rstudio console but when after pressing check in the build pane of Rstudio the packages still fails with this warning/error:

> checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... WARNING
  During startup - Warning message:
  Using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems. 
   ERROR
  During startup - Warning message:
  Using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems.

This error only occurs in R 4.2.x and not in R 4.1.x

also when trying to change the locale in the console (with administrative privileges) on the latest r patched version does not seem to work:

R version 4.2.1 Patched (2022-07-09 r82572 ucrt) -- "Funny-Looking Kid"
Copyright (C) 2022 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.

Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.

During startup - Warning message:
Using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems. 


Registered S3 method overwritten by 'ROI':
  method           from              
  print.constraint PortfolioAnalytics
> Sys.setlocale("LC_ALL","English.utf8")
[1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.utf8;LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8;LC_MONETARY=English_United States.utf8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8"
> sessionInfo()
R version 4.2.1 Patched (2022-07-09 r82572 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 19044)

Matrix products: default

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.utf8  LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8    LC_MONETARY=English_United States.utf8
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                           LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8    

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] quadprog_1.5-8             lattice_0.20-45            codetools_0.2-18           snow_0.4-4                
 [5] zoo_1.8-10                 foreach_1.5.2              slam_0.1-50                grid_4.2.1                
 [9] registry_0.5-1             PerformanceAnalytics_2.0.4 PortfolioAnalytics_1.1.0   xts_0.12.1                
[13] iterators_1.0.14           tools_4.2.1                ROI_1.0-0                  numDeriv_2016.8-1.1       
[17] parallel_4.2.1             compiler_4.2.1             doSNOW_1.0.20             

Restarting R session...

During startup - Warning message:
Using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems. 
> Sys.getlocale()
[1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252"

has someone any idea?

[laurens]

tonight I added to my Rprofile.site:

Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", locale ="English.UTF-8")
Sys.setlocale("LC_COLLATE", "C")

but still this does not let change the warning which leads to an error when checking my package within Rstudio.

Everytime an R command is called it shows this messages

During startup - Warning message:
Using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems. 

or this one:

Warning in Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", ctype) :
  using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems

I also tried to change the locale of windows to UTF-8 as indicated here:

change windows to utf-8

Now if I startup R it still shows the warning

Restarting R session...

[1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.utf8;LC_CTYPE=English_United States.utf8;LC_MONETARY=English_United States.utf8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.utf8"
During startup - Warning message:
Using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems. 
> l10n_info()
$MBCS
[1] TRUE

$`UTF-8`
[1] TRUE

$`Latin-1`
[1] FALSE

$codepage
[1] 65001

$system.codepage
[1] 65001

and when i run devtools::check() I still get the error and warning

Using locale code page other than 65001 ("UTF-8") may cause problems.

[laurens]

I was able to solve this issue by deleting an old .Renviron file in the windows documents folder