MicroDrop fails at launch when reading profile data file

[ryanfobel]

Here's the traceback:

(C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0) C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\Lib\site-packages\microdrop_launcher\bin>python -m microdrop_launcher.bin.profile_launcher
No handlers could be found for logger "mpm.commands"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\runpy.py", line 174, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
    exec code in run_globals
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\microdrop_launcher\bin\profile_launcher.py", line 398, in <module>
    return_code = main()
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\microdrop_launcher\bin\profile_launcher.py", line 335, in main
    df_profiles = load_profiles_info(args.profiles_path)
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\microdrop_launcher\profile.py", line 73, in load_profiles_info
    profiles = yaml.load(profiles_str)
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\yaml\__init__.py", line 69, in load
    loader = Loader(stream)
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\yaml\loader.py", line 34, in __init__
    Reader.__init__(self, stream)
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\yaml\reader.py", line 79, in __init__
    self.determine_encoding()
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\yaml\reader.py", line 135, in determine_encoding
    self.update(1)
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\yaml\reader.py", line 169, in update
    self.check_printable(data)
  File "C:\Users\automation\MicroDrop-v2.0\envs\Microdrop-v1.0\lib\site-packages\yaml\reader.py", line 144, in check_printable
    'unicode', "special characters are not allowed")
yaml.reader.ReaderError: unacceptable character #x0000: special characters are not allowed
  in "<string>", position 0

Note that you can only see the traceback when starting the microdrop launcher from a command line. When started from a shortcut, the window exits before the user can see what went wrong.

The contents of the file are "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00". I'm not sure how the file got this way, but I have seen this happen on two separate computers.

It looks like the line:

profiles = yaml.load(profiles_str)

in microdrop_launcher/profile.py needs a try/except block.