fix: Cast message and detail attributes before appending exception notes

[alexander-alderman-webb]

Description

Cast message and detail attributes on exceptions to string when generating the value attribute on the Sentry exception.

Resolves an unhandled TypeError when the message or detail attribute has type bytes and get_error_message() attempts to append string exception notes.

Issues

Fixes the exception described in #5050.

Reminders

• Please add tests to validate your changes, and lint your code using tox -e linters.
• Add GH Issue ID & Linear ID (if applicable)
• PR title should use conventional commit style (feat:, fix:, ref:, meta:)
• For external contributors: CONTRIBUTING.md, Sentry SDK development docs, Discord community

[sentry]

Bug: Applying str() to a bytes object within get_error_message() results in literal b'...' prefixes in Sentry error messages.
_{Severity: CRITICAL | Confidence: 1.00}

🔍 Detailed Analysis

If exc_value.message or exc_value.detail is a non-empty bytes object, the fix incorrectly wraps the entire or expression with str(). This converts the bytes object into its literal string representation (e.g., b"error" becomes "b'error'") instead of decoding it, resulting in malformed and unreadable error messages displayed in Sentry.

💡 Suggested Fix

Apply str() to each attribute individually before the or chain: str(getattr(exc_value, "message", "")) or str(getattr(exc_value, "detail", "")) or safe_str(exc_value).

🤖 Prompt for AI Agent

Review the code at the location below. A potential bug has been identified by an AI
agent.
Verify if this is a real issue. If it is, propose a fix; if not, explain why it's not
valid.

Location: sentry_sdk/utils.py#L657-L660

Potential issue: If `exc_value.message` or `exc_value.detail` is a non-empty bytes
object, the fix incorrectly wraps the entire `or` expression with `str()`. This converts
the bytes object into its literal string representation (e.g., `b"error"` becomes
`"b'error'"`) instead of decoding it, resulting in malformed and unreadable error
messages displayed in Sentry.

_{Did we get this right? 👍 / 👎 to inform future reviews.}

_{Reference_id: 2759871}

[alexander-alderman-webb]

I guess we could special case for bytes to avoid the prefix, but I'm not sure if the bytes prefix is a bug.

[sentrivana]

I think this is fine. But I'd use safe_str instead of pure str.

[alexander-alderman-webb]

Nice, changed!

Regarding Sentry's comment: previously, having bytes as the detail attribute always resulted in a TypeError as we try to append "\n" in all cases. Since the error was previously not captured, the case is not a breaking change.

sentry-python/sentry_sdk/utils.py

Line 669 in f89d77b

message += "\n" + "\n".join(note for note in notes if isinstance(note, str))

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 84.02%. Comparing base (66be3d2) to head (93f2cc7).
✅ All tests successful. No failed tests found.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #5114      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   84.00%   84.02%   +0.01%     
==========================================
  Files         180      180              
  Lines       18030    18030              
  Branches     3209     3209              
==========================================
+ Hits        15147    15149       +2     
+ Misses       1906     1905       -1     
+ Partials      977      976       -1     

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
sentry_sdk/utils.py	86.30% <100.00%> (ø)

... and 2 files with indirect coverage changes

[sentrivana]

LGTM, see comment.

[sentrivana]

I think this is fine. But I'd use safe_str instead of pure str.