Problems with Software Boutique on Odroid N2

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hello all, I'm running a fresh 18.04 Ubuntu Mate install on an Odroid N2. Just got it a few days ago and all seems to be fine except Software Boutique. It just displays the clothes hangers and says stocking boutique. Im sure this has been solved somewhere but i couldn't find some one with the same error messages. i would really appreciate a bit of help, I'm sure its something stupid easy

tom@odroid:~$ ubuntu-mate-welcome --software-only 
2019/06/18 11:25:33.576568 cmd_run.go:884: WARNING: cannot create user data directory: failed to verify SELinux context of /home/tom/snap: exec: "matchpathcon": executable file not found in $PATH
[Welcome] Starting in Software Boutique mode. 
pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci
lspci: Cannot find any working access method.
Exception in thread Thread-2:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/threading.py", line 916, in _bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/threading.py", line 864, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "/snap/ubuntu-mate-welcome/337/usr/bin/ubuntu-mate-welcome", line 1854, in detect_graphics
    self.graphics_grep = self.graphics_grep.split("controller: ",1)[1]
IndexError: list index out of range

[Apps] Software Index JSON is invalid or missing! 
[Welcome] Snap detected. Using __VERSION__ 
[Welcome] Version: 19.10.0 
[Welcome] Application Ready. 
[Apps] Application index not loaded. Cannot populate categories. 
[Apps] Application index not loaded. Cannot update page. 
Exception in thread Thread-3:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/threading.py", line 916, in _bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/threading.py", line 864, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "/snap/ubuntu-mate-welcome/337/usr/bin/ubuntu-mate-welcome", line 1095, in load_thread
    dynamicapps.populate_featured_apps(self)
  File "/snap/ubuntu-mate-welcome/337/usr/bin/ubuntu-mate-welcome", line 2515, in populate_featured_apps
    category_items = list(self.index[category].keys())
TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not subscriptable
#2

Found it - someone else had a Odroid and had the same issue:

It was identified that the applications.json file couldn't be parsed due to some accented characters.

If you set the language encoding to UTF-8 as outlined below, does this solve the issue?