Rails.application.config.after_initialize do ActiveRecord::Base.connection # try to set language and locale using models (which use Archive Config) Language.default Locale.default rescue ActiveRecord::NoDatabaseError # No database, this happens when we run rake db:create rescue ActiveRecord::ConnectionNotEstablished # no database connection rescue # ArchiveConfig didn't work, try to set it manually if Language.table_exists? && Locale.table_exists? language = Language.find_or_create_by(short: "en", name: "English") Locale.set_base_locale(iso: "en", name: "English (US)", language_id: language.id) end end