Powershell: WSL 2 - Update-Help is not working.

[MaximoTrinidad]

This is only happening in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) when executing the cmdlet Update-Help is not doing anything.

Below sample is running "Update-Help" in Ubuntu 18.04 VM:

In WSL, it doesn't give any errors, and quickly return to the prompt:

Steps to reproduce

sudo pwsh
Update-Help -Force

Expected behavior

Display update progress and, to at least, ends with some errors.

Actual behavior

No progress, and it ends quickly. No update was performed.

Environment data

Windows 10 Version 2004 (OS Build 19041.329)

PS /home/maxt> $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      7.0.2
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    7.0.2
OS                             Linux 4.19.104-microsoft-standard #1 SMP Wed Feb 19 06:37:35 UTC 2020
Platform                       Unix
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0

[daxian-dbw]

/cc @adityapatwardhan @sdwheeler

[adityapatwardhan]

Updating the language from C.UTF-8 to en-US.UTF-8 fixes the issue.

LANG                           en_US.UTF-8
LC_ALL                         en_US.UTF-8

Let me know if that works for you.

[sdwheeler]

@adityapatwardhan Oh interesting. Sounds like something we need to document.

How do you do that? Is that a WSL setting or an OS setting? Is it the same for all distributions?

[MaximoTrinidad]

@adityapatwardhan

So, I'm assuming this is a Linux environment variable?

## Current values:
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$ echo $LANG
C.UTF-8
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$ echo $LC_ALL
-EMPTY-
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$

Updated:

(base) maxt@sapien01:~$
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$ export LC_ALL='en_US.UTF-8'
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$ export LANG='en_US.UTF-8'
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$ echo $LC_ALL
en_US.UTF-8
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8
(base) maxt@sapien01:~$

It works!

Thanks... But, to whom this need to be addressed to?
:P

[daxian-dbw]

@adityapatwardhan @sdwheeler Is this something we should fix or the work around is by design for Linux? If it's the latter, then can one of you please open a doc issue?

[sdwheeler]

@daxian-dbw @adityapatwardhan Does this affect all distributions? Is this specific to WSL? We can document this but, depending on the scope of the issue, we might want to fix this.

[vexx32]

Can we have pwsh treat C.UTF-8 on Unix as en.UTF-8? I don't think it makes sense to make a specific exception for pwsh's in-box help only (other modules will also see the same issue if they utilise MAML-format help).

[adityapatwardhan]

To my knowledge, the default locale on Ubuntu 18.04 changed to C.UTF.8. We do not have help content for that locale, hence we fail to get help. We explicitly set the locale to en-us in our docker images hence it works over there.

We should definitely document this. Another workaround that might work is to use Update-Help -uiculture en-us.

[MaximoTrinidad]

Cool @adityapatwardhan

Thanks for the workarounds!
;)

[msftbot[bot]]

This issue has been marked as answered and has not had any activity for 1 day. It has been closed for housekeeping purposes.