How to fix PuTTY showing garbled characters?

Question

Connecting from a Windows 7 PC via SSH to an Ubuntu server using PuTTY, I get some screen errors:

enter image description here

I.e. it:

"Double-draws" the selection inside Midnight Commander (MC).
Other characters like line elements are drawn as the wrong characters (e.g. "â" instead of "|").

I connected to the same Ubuntu server with a terminal and SHH from a Mac OS X and do not get these screen garbling (i.e. everything looks and works correctly). I've already tried to play with the font settings inside PuTTY, changing it from Courier New to Consolas but without luck.

My question therefore is:

How to configure PuTTY to correctly display special characters and not double-draw/overwrite screen lines?

With SecureCRT: Select Options -> Session Options -> Terminal -> Appearence -> Character encoding -> select: UTF-8. Hope help others like me! — Vunb, Sep 03 '19 at 09:16

score 84 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 06 '13 at 06:32

84

You almost certainly have set the wrong character set in your PuTTY settings.

Verify the character set on the remote system by running the command:

locale

This should return something like:

LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

So check your PuTTY settings under Translation and ensure that you have UTF-8 set as the character set.

PuTTY Reconfiguration

You may need to tweak the line drawing setting as well, but it is probably not likely.

answered Feb 06 '13 at 06:32

Michael Hampton

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This is not sufficient in all cases. You should also export the following variable to your environment: `NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1` [[more info](http://superuser.com/q/278286/208988)] – Piotr Jurkiewicz Dec 14 '14 at 22:53
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in case `locale` returns `POSIX` you probably have usePAM disabled in the sshd config – user2693017 Jul 20 '15 at 19:59
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If the locale returns something like `POSIX`, issue `update-locale LANG=en_US.utf8` at the command line - see https://www.thomas-krenn.com/de/wiki/Locales_unter_Ubuntu_konfigurieren – koppor Dec 19 '15 at 11:05
@michael-hampton, my system is configured to use en_US.UTF-8. I see that different places say different things about locale. Some places mention I should use en_US while other places mention I should use de_DE. I saw before the grep and other core utils use the locale to set the character set, I believe. What are the implicaitons of changing this? – alpha_989 Nov 11 '17 at 21:00
@koppor, you mentioned about changing locale to en_US, while michael mentioned changing locale to de_DE. Which one is correct? – alpha_989 Nov 11 '17 at 21:02
@alpha_989 You should use your desired language/country. This will change the language that most programs use to display information to you. – Michael Hampton Nov 12 '17 at 00:00
Ahh ok, makes sense. Thanks for the explanation @Michael-hompton. Yeah.. I thought so too. But I noticed that you are in NH.. not Germany. So was not sure about whether I should be using that. Anyways, the problem I was having was not related to this, but I figured it out: https://superuser.com/questions/278286/making-256-color-and-line-drawing-characters-both-work-in-putty/278337?noredirect=1#comment1867277_278337. – alpha_989 Nov 12 '17 at 01:08

score 42 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 19 '15 at 01:57

42

I had an issue with Debian's aptitude program even though I had UTF-8 as my characters set. What worked for me was to set the 'Connection > Data > 'Terminal-type string' to 'putty' instead of 'xterm' - apparently Putty ignores the character sequence to switch into drawing mode: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/wishlist/utf8-plus-vt100.html

enter image description here

answered Jan 19 '15 at 01:57

Daniel Sokolowski

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Excellent. Easy and it works. (At least it does on Debian/Ubuntu.) – Nate Apr 29 '15 at 22:46
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This works well (on PuTTY) but then it introduces another (more minor) problem: remote-controlled window title changing no longer works. – ADTC Jun 19 '16 at 08:24
Excellent. Solved the problem for ncmpc on Ubuntu Artful. – weberjn Jan 08 '18 at 23:19

score 23 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 14 '19 at 09:38

23

After 15 years I got annoyed once more and googled around again, found this, chose

change settings → window → translation → remote char set → "use font encoding"

and that fixed it.

edited Jan 14 '19 at 09:38

Uwe Keim

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answered Jan 13 '19 at 22:08

jason

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For me, UTF-8 was already set but it didn't work, instead setting it to this did. – SergeantSerk Mar 05 '21 at 14:51
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When I set `Use font encoding` then for example `armbian-config` characters are OK but they are wrong in Midnight Commander and vice versa - when I set `UTF-8` then characters in `armbian-config` are wrong but in Midnight Commader are OK. – Chupo_cro Jun 28 '21 at 22:45
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UTF-8 was set for me as well, but it didn't work when I was using "pm2 monit" which updates the screen continuously. Setting "use font encoding" instead fixed that process so I was happy for a few mins. *But* later on, I used the "pm2 status" command which draws a box on-screen only once... and *it* was now displaying the garbage characters instead of lines. It's like you can't have both working at the same time. No problem with a plain-old-linux shell terminal though. – BrentHarsh Apr 11 '22 at 19:09

score 17 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 10 '20 at 05:06

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Window → Translation → "Enable VT100 line drawing even in UTF-8 mode".

This fixes the display of both mc and wavemon for me.

edited Mar 10 '20 at 05:06

Uwe Keim

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answered Mar 09 '20 at 22:17

Cristian Diaconescu

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Yeah, this fixes `aptitude`, `iptraf-ng` without breaking `mc`. (with `Terminal type string` set to either `xterm` or `xterm-256color`). See also https://superuser.com/questions/278286/making-256-color-and-line-drawing-characters-both-work-in-putty – tehnicaorg Dec 27 '20 at 20:44
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THIS is the real answer. If you have it set as UTF8, vt100 line draw does NOT WORK. – Mr. Beeblebrox Sep 09 '21 at 01:55
This worked for me when using `pm2` and `tmux` (other answers would have it work for one but not the other). – Eric Mutta Dec 26 '22 at 17:28
Only answer that works under Windows with pm2 monit – philk Mar 06 '23 at 16:54

score 14 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 24 '14 at 00:58

14

Also, if UTF-8 is not properly configured, you may run it as mc -ac.

Credits: http://blog.acsystem.sk/linux/midnight-commander-utf8-line-drawing-characters-problem

answered Oct 24 '14 at 00:58

hoppy

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score 10 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 14 '15 at 10:12

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The two basic factors are Window/Translation UTF-8 in putty and locale settings in Linux, as instructed here and many other places.

In addition, it may help in putty to set Connection/Data/Terminal-type string to putty, and/or in Linux to export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1. These two are also mentioned multiple places.

But: you may still get blocks for certain characters because the default fonts like Courier and Lucida Console don't have all Unicode chars. Download and install http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Download, and set putty to use it.

This last trick was necessary for me to get noping (recommended!) to show all graphic characters.

edited Jul 14 '15 at 10:12

sebix

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answered Jul 14 '15 at 09:41

GauteLund

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`export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1` worked best for me. I just need to remember to use the `-E` option on `sudo` when I run `iftop` to keep that environment setting. `sudo -E iftop` – HeatfanJohn Sep 12 '18 at 20:07
`NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1` is not needed anymore. See https://superuser.com/questions/278286/making-256-color-and-line-drawing-characters-both-work-in-putty on how to enable VT100 drawing characters in PuTTY 0.71+. – tehnicaorg Dec 27 '20 at 20:47

score 10 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 06 '16 at 08:43

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For all you poor old VMS guys that end up here:

PuTTY → Window → Translation → Remote character set → DEC-MCS

worked for me.

edited Dec 06 '16 at 08:43

Uwe Keim

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answered Dec 05 '16 at 19:55

David Rabahy

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score 7 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 20 '14 at 16:22

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In my case (Ubuntu 14.04) the issue was caused by missing

UsePAM yes

entry in /etc/ssh/sshd_config as /etc/pam.d/sshd pam configuration is responsible by default for loading /etc/default/locale into users environment.

answered Oct 20 '14 at 16:22

fakej Gazeta.pl

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This fixed it for me. – Martin Dec 16 '18 at 07:21

score 6 · Answer 9 · answered May 06 '16 at 16:48

I was looking for many solutions for this when using Docker machine (both locale and on machines set up by system administrator). In my Putty everything was fine (I had UTF-8), I was using also other SSH client and had exact same problem.

Running:

mc -ac

was solving the problem (but not completely) and I was looking for complete solution.

After reading many suggestions, I finally found the one that solved my issue.

In terminal when you run:

locale

verify what locale you have set. I had by default C locale.

To verify all locale installed run locale -a

I have for example:

C
C.UTF-8
POSIX

by default.

The solution is exporting LANG variable with C.UTF-8 locale like so:

export LANG="C.UTF-8"

You can obviously add it into .bashrc to have it automatically set in your profile.

What are the side-effects of changing LANG variable? If you already had C.UTF-8 as LANG, why export it again? — alpha_989, Nov 11 '17 at 22:15

score 3 · Answer 10 · edited Jan 14 '19 at 17:06

3

I had to set, on the Window → Translation page, the character set to:

ISO-8859-1:1998 (Latin-1, West Europe)

Then, and only then, did the linedraw characters appear correctly.

edited Jan 14 '19 at 17:06

Uwe Keim

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answered Dec 20 '18 at 00:29

zootal

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score 3 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 23 '19 at 16:45

As mentioned in many answers:

Putty > Window > Translation > Remote character set > UTF8

is the solution.

But then don't forget to go to Session > Default settings and hit Save. No message will be displayed to confirm success, but it will become the default indeed:

score 2 · Answer 12 · answered May 20 '15 at 15:04

Another reason somehow related to pam that may affect hosts with powerbroker/pbis/likewise authentication.

grep /etc/pam.d for the "lsass" occurance:

grep -r lsass /etc/pam.d

if you see in the output something like:

/etc/pam.d/common-session:session       sufficient        pam_lsass.so

then it's probably the root cause of the problem. The quick fix is to replace "sufficient" with "optional" next to pam_lsass module so it looks like:

/etc/pam.d/common-session:session       optional        pam_lsass.so

/etc/pam.d/common-session (or other file with similar entry - there might be few of them) is probably included by /etc/pam.d/sshd before pam_env is loaded so if the processing of pam modules is finished before it comes to pam_env, the /etc/default/locale is not loaded in the user environment and you have garbled characters.

score 1 · Answer 13 · answered May 05 '16 at 09:27

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Running mc this way (set locale to en) works for me:

$ LC_ALL=en mc

answered May 05 '16 at 09:27

marioosh

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score 1 · Answer 14 · edited Mar 10 '17 at 18:14

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what worked for me was "Connection, Data, Terminal-type string = ansi" plus "Window, Translation, Remote character set = Use font encoding" then set TERM=ansi on the unix side.

PS. Remember to turn smart quotes OFF if you are forced to use MS-Word.

edited Mar 10 '17 at 18:14

chicks

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answered Mar 10 '17 at 15:05

TRM

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You should also mention that you're not connecting to a modern LInux system, but an older non-Linux system. – Michael Hampton Mar 10 '17 at 15:50

score 1 · Answer 15 · edited Sep 02 '21 at 13:56

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My problem was that putty is configured as UTF-8 but the remote system is a ISO-8859-1

west Europe, so I changed that on putty and anything worked fine.

Putty screenshot

edited Sep 02 '21 at 13:56

Uwe Keim

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answered Sep 15 '18 at 09:05

velteyn

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How to fix PuTTY showing garbled characters?

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