GRUB2 error, Error: file grub/locale/en.gmo not found

[therealola]

Hi, I am new to Gentoo, looks cool so far.
I have a quad-core q9450 cpu, old-style bios and MBR.
A couple of weeks ago I installed Gentoo to a test-harddrive in a somewhat complicated multi-boot setup: on the first had drive - gentoo, debian and Win8. On the second hard drive - WinXP64. With GRUB2 as boot loader, installed in MBR + the first 2048 empty sectors, before the first partition. I did the partitioning with frisk. I used the Gentoo MinimalCD, downloaded about three weeks ago.

First I did this to a "test-harddisk" (old but good WD 250G). The install worked fine and grub worked fine. The kernel version was 3.12.21-gentoo-r1.

Then I repeated the whole procedure to another hard disk. I did not download the MinimalCD again - I used the same CD again. Everything went fine, this time the kernel version was 3.14.14-gentoo. However, when I boot the system a grub2 error-message flashes by, right before the grub2 menu. The screen says "GRUB loading. Welcome to GRUB. Error: file /grub/locale/en.gmo not found". The grub menu displays fine and I can boot into Gentoo (and Win8) fine. However, I don't like grub error messages..

In the /grub/locale folder there are many .mo file - it.mo for italian etc but not for english - however there is en@latin.mo for english. There are no .gmo files. Is .mo same as .gmo?? What is this .mo file and this .gmo file? is g just short for gzip? I just would like to understand a little more before I do anything.. And how to fix it? How can I get this en.gmo file or this en.mo?

I did not get this error in the first install, as explained. So maybe a new grub error?

Another maybe related thing: when I edit the grub2 script file (/etc/grub.d/11_win81 to dual boot with windows I use the syntax
echo "adding win81"
cat << EOF
menuentry ...

EOF

However this time I get a syntax error when doing grub2-mkconfig. When I remove the two lines with EOF I am good. In my first install the two EOF lines were not a problem. So maybe grub2 has changed this last 3 weeks?

[ferreirafm]

Hi therealola,
Have you added you locales to /etc/locale.gen?
Take a look here
G'Luck

[egberts]

This is old, but I've included it here for posterity a workaround to this error message of `/boot/grub/C.gmo not found.`.

This error condition often occurs during:

* after any CD-based rescue boot-up sequence
* faulty distro ISO installer

The `/boot/grub/C.gmo` file is missing because the `LANG` environment variable was not defined during `grub-install` (used to be `grub2-install` where the error was first found).

As an undefined `LANG`, the `grub-install` will proceed to install all of the MO files fro `/usr/share/grub` into `/boot/grub`, but it will not find the `C.gmo` file at the next reboot.


A temporary workaround is to always ensure that `LANG` is defined during `grub-install`.

Alternatively and notably after a CD-based rescue bootup, executing the `/etc/profile` will often define your missing `LANG` envvar for `grub-install` to use prior to your next bootup.
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