[1.8.x] Fixed #26046 -- Fixed a crash with translations and Django-unknown language code

Thanks Jens Lundstrom for the report and Tim Graham for the review.
Backport of 632a9f21bc from master.

3 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py b/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py
index aa50c02fb2..8aa8f4e995 100644
--- a/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py
+++ b/django/utils/translation/trans_real.py
@@ -121,6 +121,9 @@ class DjangoTranslation(gettext_module.GNUTranslations):
             # default lang should have at least one translation file available.
             raise IOError("No translation files found for default language %s." % settings.LANGUAGE_CODE)
         self._add_fallback()
+        if self._catalog is None:
+            # No catalogs found for this language, set an empty catalog.
+            self._catalog = {}
 
     def __repr__(self):
         return "<DjangoTranslation lang:%s>" % self.__language
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.8.9.txt b/docs/releases/1.8.9.txt
index be3b719b1e..823bd9b3eb 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.8.9.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.8.9.txt
@@ -11,3 +11,6 @@ Bugfixes
 
 * Fixed a regression that caused the "user-tools" items to display on the
   admin's logout page (:ticket:`26035`).
+
+* Fixed a crash in the translations system when the current language has no
+  translations (:ticket:`26046`).
diff --git a/tests/i18n/tests.py b/tests/i18n/tests.py
index 9a20ba5d32..715057844f 100644
--- a/tests/i18n/tests.py
+++ b/tests/i18n/tests.py
@@ -1273,6 +1273,10 @@ class TestLanguageInfo(TestCase):
 
     def test_unknown_language_code(self):
         six.assertRaisesRegex(self, KeyError, r"Unknown language code xx\.", get_language_info, 'xx')
+        with translation.override('xx'):
+            # A language with no translation catalogs should fallback to the
+            # untranslated string.
+            self.assertEqual(ugettext("Title"), "Title")
 
     def test_unknown_only_country_code(self):
         li = get_language_info('de-xx')