[Bug 1907850] Re: Cache not generated for all translations

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu Xenial)
       Status: New => Confirmed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1907850

Title:
  Cache not generated for all translations

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in apt source package in Xenial:
  Confirmed
Status in apt source package in Bionic:
  Confirmed
Status in apt source package in Focal:
  Confirmed
Status in apt source package in Groovy:
  Confirmed
Status in apt source package in Hirsute:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  In bug 1161743 we discovered that if a system is configured with multiple locales, only the locales of the user who generated the apt-cache will be available for translated descriptions.

  [Test case]
  An automated test case has been included as a snippet in  test/integration/test-bug-490000-search-in-all-translations which runs during autopkgtest. That's sufficient for validation.

  Manual test:

  # apt install locales-all # get the locale
  # export LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8
  # locale
  LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8
  LANGUAGE=
  LC_CTYPE="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_NUMERIC="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_TIME="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_COLLATE="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_MONETARY="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_MESSAGES="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_PAPER="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_NAME="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_ADDRESS="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_TELEPHONE="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_MEASUREMENT="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_IDENTIFICATION="sv_SE.UTF-8"
  LC_ALL=
  # apt update
  # apt-cache show tasksel | grep Desc
  Description-sv: tool for selecting tasks for installation on Debian systems
  Description-md5: cbbb747708986d11ea77c80b9b038fec
  # apt-cache showpkg tasksel
  Package: tasksel
  Versions:
  3.34ubuntu16 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_groovy_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
   Description Language:
                   File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_groovy_main_binary-amd64_Packages
                    MD5: cbbb747708986d11ea77c80b9b038fec
   Description Language: sv
                   File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_groovy_main_i18n_Translation-sv
                    MD5: cbbb747708986d11ea77c80b9b038fec
   Description Language: en
                   File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_groovy_main_i18n_Translation-en
                    MD5: cbbb747708986d11ea77c80b9b038fec
  [...]

  So far so good, but now assume the root user actually has C configured
  as locale, and e.g. runs apt-cache show (or apt-daily.service does an
  update):

  root at g:~# rm /var/cache/apt/*.bin
  root at g:~# LANG=C apt-cache  show tasksel
  [...]
  Description-en: tool for selecting tasks for installation on Debian systems
   This package provides 'tasksel', a simple interface for users who
   want to configure their system to perform a specific task.

  root at g:~# apt-cache  showpkg tasksel
  Package: tasksel
  Versions:
  3.34ubuntu16 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_groovy_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
   Description Language:
                   File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_groovy_main_binary-amd64_Packages
                    MD5: cbbb747708986d11ea77c80b9b038fec
   Description Language: en
                   File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_groovy_main_i18n_Translation-en
                    MD5: cbbb747708986d11ea77c80b9b038fec

  This should show the sv locale as well given that it's still around
  (also we are still running with LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8), but it only
  generated the cache with the english language description in here.

  [Where problems could occur]
  People might end up seeing a wrong translation if other code paths are wrong, but then they'd already see them if they explicitly configured multiple languages and then switched the preferred one.

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