Error while executing gh-deploy

[ThomasArdal]

I've successfully deployed a MkDocs site using the gh-deploy command. When I try to deploy some additional changes to my master branch, I get the following error:

c:\docs>mkdocs gh-deploy --clean
INFO    -  Cleaning site directory
INFO    -  Building documentation to directory: c:\docs\site
INFO    -  Copying 'c:\docs\site' to 'gh-pages' branch and pushing to GitHub.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python34\lib\runpy.py", line 170, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", mod_spec)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "c:\Python34\Scripts\mkdocs.exe\__main__.py", line 9, in <module>
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 664, in __call__
    return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 644, in main
    rv = self.invoke(ctx)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 991, in invoke
    return _process_result(sub_ctx.command.invoke(sub_ctx))
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 837, in invoke
    return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 464, in invoke
    return callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\mkdocs\cli.py", line 186, in gh_deploy_command
    gh_deploy.gh_deploy(config, message=message)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\mkdocs\gh_deploy.py", line 69, in gh_deploy
    remote_branch)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\mkdocs\utils\ghp_import.py", line 163, in ghp_import
    if not try_rebase(remote, branch):
  File "C:\Python34\lib\site-packages\mkdocs\utils\ghp_import.py", line 78, in try_rebase
    if sp.call(cmd) != 0:
  File "C:\Python34\lib\subprocess.py", line 537, in call
    with Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs) as p:
  File "C:\Python34\lib\subprocess.py", line 859, in __init__
    restore_signals, start_new_session)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\subprocess.py", line 1086, in _execute_child
    args = list2cmdline(args)
  File "C:\Python34\lib\subprocess.py", line 663, in list2cmdline
    needquote = (" " in arg) or ("\t" in arg) or not arg
TypeError: 'str' does not support the buffer interface

[d0ugal]

So, this sounds like we might have hit an issue related to #703 - I think we are passing unicode to an API that expects a bytestring?

[ThomasArdal]

That sounds weird. All of my md files are in UTF-8 and it worked the first time i published the site to gh-pages.

[facelessuser]

@ThomasArdal, I don't think he was referring to the content of your md files, but the encoding of the arguments getting passed from command line or encoding between methods internally.

[d0ugal]

Sorry, I was too vague. I am lagging after travelling and was trying to be too lazy 😀

I can't account for why this worked and then didn't. Other than maybe it always works for the first deploy and the issue is to do with the code that is different in subsequent deploys?

The cause of the problem does seem to be internal and not related to your files. Given you are on Windows I suspect it will be related to that.

[ThomasArdal]

@d0ugal Anyway I can debug what's going on here? Or maybe use some other mkdocs commands to eliminate stuff.

[waylan]

@ThomasArdal looking at the traceback, the error is definitely within the gh-deploy code (therefore other commands won't exhibit the problem). The code builds up a git command as a string, then calls a subprocess passing in that command. The encoding issue appears to be with that command string. I have two things you can check:

1. What settings, if any, do you have set in your config file which would be used by the deploy script? And what are they set to?
2. I noticed that mkdocs/utils/ghp_import.py contains from __future__ import unicode_literals. Could you try commenting out that line (line 18)? You will need to reinstall the altered code.

I suspect the improperly encoded string is coming from one of those two places. In the first case, a config setting or in the second case, a default value defined in the code.

[ramramps]

I tried commenting the line from future import unicode_literals and installed the code. still the same error. Isn't this a showstopper? can someone help to clear this?

[ThomasArdal]

I guess a workaround is to build the site, make a copy of the output, switch to the gh-pages branch, paste the content and push the changes. But being able to do this with a single command would be way more sweet.

[d0ugal]

I spent a bit of time looking into this, the problem I have is that I am not able to reproduce it. We don't have anyone working on MkDocs that uses windows, so tracking these things down can be tricky.

[waylan]

I was able to spend a little bit of time on a Windows box yesterday and was not able to reproduce it there either. Although, that box only had Python 2.7 installed. Afterward, I noticed that the error was reported in Python 3.4...

Which is weird. If the error is in Python 3 then I expect that it would not be related to unicode_literals as that changes the behavior of Python 2 to match Python 3 (mostly). As I understand it, it should have no effect on how Python 3 behaves. I am now thinking that perhaps there is a Windows specific bug in the gh-deploy code (perhaps the upstream package which MkDocs has vendored). But without a way to reproduce it, I'm at a loss of what the bug could be.

[ThomasArdal]

I tried downgrading to Python 2.7.10 and it turns out that the bug is not there anymore. Success.

I'm able to re-create the bug on a new repository with Python 3.4.x. First time I run a gh-deploy, everything works fine. The second time I run mkdocs gh-deploy --clean I get the same error as previously mentioned.

With Python 2.7.10, I still get a warning though. Seems to be related to the previous bug:

C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\mkdocs\cli.py:86: Warning: Click detected the use of the unicode_literals future import. This is heavily discouraged because it can introduce subtle bugs in your code. You should instead use explicit u"" literals for your unicode strings. For more information see http://click.pocoo.org/python3/
@common_options

[d0ugal]

Great, good to know 2.7 works. So I think that suggests we have a Python 3 bug on windows.

That warning should be safe to ignore, it will be disabled in the next release.

[waylan]

Yes, that warning was addressed in #703. However, as you state, the bug doesn't exist in Python 2.7 (where unicode_literals matters) so I think that is a red herring in the case. Just to be sure though, try commenting out/removing the from __future__ import unicode_literals line from each of the following files (when using Python 3.4--I expect it will break things in Python 2.7)):

• mkdocs.__main__.py (previously mkdocs/cli.py)
• mkdocs/commands/gh_deploy.py
• mkdocs/utils/ghp_import.py

I would be surprised if that fixes the issue, but it would be helpful to know either way so we can focus on the actual problem.

[Bruno17]

had exactly that same issue with python 3.5
installed python 2.7.11 and reinstalled mkdocs and the issue has gone