Getting ICU error when trying to build with globalization

[DevOpsAzurance]

Description

Ubuntu image is not built with required ICU packages needed for dotnet build:

Process terminated. Couldn't find a valid ICU package installed on the system. Set the configuration flag System.Globalization.Invariant to true if you want to run with no globalization support.

Setting environment variable to:

$export DOTNET_SYSTEM_GLOBALIZATION_INVARIANT=1

is not viable as dev requires globalization.

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Image version and build link

Current agent version: '3.236.0'
Current image version: '1.0.3'

This image is using the March Build of the Ubuntu OS.

Is it regression?

NA

Expected behavior

It should be able to build with Globalization using ICU on Ubuntu

Actual behavior

Fails due to missing packages

Repro steps

1. Run build

[Prabhatkumar59]

Hi @DevOpsAzurance - Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We will look into this issue and will update you after investigating.

[fedordikarev]

hi! just sharing that we today started to get builds failing due to missing icu in macos images

could that be related to original issue and any of recent changes in images?

[Prabhatkumar59]

Hi @DevOpsAzurance - After my observation from your issue description, you can try to follow below workflow to resolve the ICU issue on Ubuntu runners for .NET builds which will install the required ICU packages before the build.:-

steps:
  - name: Install ICU packages
    run: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y libicu-dev

This might ensures that the .NET build can proceed with full globalization support.