diff --git a/setup/start.sh b/setup/start.sh
index 04096474..fd0175ab 100755
--- a/setup/start.sh
+++ b/setup/start.sh
@@ -27,6 +27,21 @@ export LC_TYPE=en_US.UTF-8
 # Fix so line drawing characters are shown correctly in Putty on Windows. See #744.
 export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1
 
+# Ensure Python reads/writes files in UTF-8. If the machine
+# triggers some other locale in Python, like ASCII encoding,
+# Python may not be able to read/write files. Here and in
+# the management daemon startup script.
+
+if [ -z `locale -a | grep en_US.utf8` ]; then
+    # Generate locale if not exists
+    hide_output locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
+fi
+
+export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
+export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
+export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+export LC_TYPE=en_US.UTF-8
+
 # Recall the last settings used if we're running this a second time.
 if [ -f /etc/mailinabox.conf ]; then
 	# Run any system migrations before proceeding. Since this is a second run,