UnicodeDecodeError

[zunayed]

I am receiving an error running ipython from the shell. Everything was running fine a few days ago but recently I have been unable to get it running.

I'm on osx mavericks and have pip installed everything in a virualenv. I have also created a new virtualenv and have the same error. Tried both V 1.1 and 1.0 but no luck

this is my python version

Python 2.7.5 (default, Aug 25 2013, 00:04:04)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 5.0 (clang-500.0.68)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
here is what is installed

Jinja2==2.7.1
MarkupSafe==0.18
brewer2mpl==1.3.2
ipython==1.1.0
matplotlib==1.3.1
nose==1.3.0
numpy==1.8.0
pandas==0.12.0
prettyplotlib==0.1.3
pyparsing==2.0.1
python-dateutil==2.2
pytz==2013.8
pyzmq==14.0.0
seaborn==0.1
six==1.4.1
tornado==3.1.1
wsgiref==0.1.2

-----------------error from terminal-------------------------------------

(pyData)Zunayeds-MacBook-Pro:pyData zunayed$ ipython
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/bin/ipython", line 9, in
load_entry_point('ipython==1.1.0', 'console_scripts', 'ipython')()
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/init.py", line 118, in start_ipython
return launch_new_instance(argv=argv, *_kwargs)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/config/application.py", line 544, in launch_instance
app.initialize(argv)
File "", line 2, in initialize
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/config/application.py", line 89, in catch_config_error
return method(app, *args, *_kwargs)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/terminal/ipapp.py", line 323, in initialize
self.init_shell()
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/terminal/ipapp.py", line 339, in init_shell
ipython_dir=self.ipython_dir, user_ns=self.user_ns)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/config/configurable.py", line 349, in instance
inst = cls(_args, *_kwargs)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 424, in new
value.instance_init(inst)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 255, in instance_init
self.set_default_value(obj)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 275, in set_default_value
newdv = self._validate(obj, dv)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 323, in _validate
return self.validate(obj, value)
File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 1028, in validate
return unicode(value)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 7: ordinal not in range(128)

If you suspect this is an IPython bug, please report it at:
https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues
or send an email to the mailing list at ipython-dev@scipy.org

You can print a more detailed traceback right now with "%tb", or use "%debug"
to interactively debug it.

Extra-detailed tracebacks for bug-reporting purposes can be enabled via:
c.Application.verbose_crash=True

[takluyver]

Have you set any options in IPython config files? Does the working directory have any non-ascii characters in?

[zunayed]

I can replicate the error in a clean virtualenv with no files in the workding directory other then the files created form virtualenv. Also I did not modify the Ipython config files

An interesting thing is you can still run a fully functional ipython notebook using : ipython notebook -pylab inline

[minrk]

what is the output of ipython --debug?

[zunayed]

(pyData)Zunayeds-MacBook-Pro:pyData zunayed$ ipython --debug
[TerminalIPythonApp] Config changed:
[TerminalIPythonApp] {'TerminalIPythonApp': {'log_level': 10}}
[TerminalIPythonApp] Using existing profile dir: u'/Users/zunayed/.ipython/profile_default'
[TerminalIPythonApp] Searching path [u'/Users/zunayed/pyData', u'/Users/zunayed/.ipython/profile_default'] for config files
[TerminalIPythonApp] Attempting to load config file: ipython_config.py
[TerminalIPythonApp] Config file ipython_config.py not found
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/bin/ipython", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('ipython==1.1.0', 'console_scripts', 'ipython')()
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/__init__.py", line 118, in start_ipython
    return launch_new_instance(argv=argv, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/config/application.py", line 544, in launch_instance
    app.initialize(argv)
  File "<string>", line 2, in initialize
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/config/application.py", line 89, in catch_config_error
    return method(app, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/terminal/ipapp.py", line 323, in initialize
    self.init_shell()
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/terminal/ipapp.py", line 339, in init_shell
    ipython_dir=self.ipython_dir, user_ns=self.user_ns)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/config/configurable.py", line 349, in instance
    inst = cls(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 424, in __new__
    value.instance_init(inst)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 255, in instance_init
    self.set_default_value(obj)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 275, in set_default_value
    newdv = self._validate(obj, dv)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 323, in _validate
    return self.validate(obj, value)
  File "/Users/zunayed/pyData/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/traitlets.py", line 1028, in validate
    return unicode(value)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 7: ordinal not in range(128)

If you suspect this is an IPython bug, please report it at:
    https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues
or send an email to the mailing list at ipython-dev@scipy.org

You can print a more detailed traceback right now with "%tb", or use "%debug"
to interactively debug it.

Extra-detailed tracebacks for bug-reporting purposes can be enabled via:
    c.Application.verbose_crash=True

[takluyver]

Do you have $EDITOR set?

[zunayed]

Yes! In my .bashrc file I have

export EDITOR="subl -w"  

Commenting that line out lets python again! Thanks takluyver! Curious why this happens.

[takluyver]

Does the value of EDITOR have any non-ascii characters in? I.e., if you uncomment that again, and in Python, do:

import os
os.environ['EDITOR']

What do you see

[zunayed]

So I ran those commands

>>> import os
>>> os.environ['EDITOR']
'subl -w\xc2\xa0\xc2\xa0'
>>>

Turns out there was some spaces after the
export EDITOR="subl -w"

Removing them now allows yields

>>> import os
>>> os.environ['EDITOR']
'subl -w'

That pretty much solved all my issues!

[takluyver]

Reopening because I'm going to work on at least having a better error message for this ;-)

[takluyver]

With #4624, it should print a warning and carry on working in this case.

[zunayed]

Awesome!

[brentpayne]

I had this same issue in version ipython==1.2.1, EDITOR was set to '\xe2\x80\x98emacs\xe2\x80\x99'