UnicodeDecodeError when trying to get environment variables in 5.4.1

[MKHoffmann]

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
• Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  • Restarted Spyder
  • Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  • Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  • Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

Spyder in Version 5.4.1 will show the starting screen, but then not open the IDE. When opening spyder with the anaconda prompt this error is shown. Had to roll back to 5.4.0.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. Update to Spyder 5.4.1
2. Try to start it.
3. Not starting and throwing the error shown below.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

The Spyder IDE.

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

File "C:\Program Files\anaconda3\envs\ml\lib\site-packages\spyder\utils\environ.py", line 60, in get_user_environment_variables
    res = stdout.decode().strip().split(os.linesep)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x84 in position 1204: invalid start byte

Versions

• Spyder version: 5.4.1
• Python version: 3.9.15
• Qt version: 5.15.6
• PyQt version: 5.15.7
• Operating System name/version: Windows 11

Dependencies

# Mandatory:
atomicwrites >=1.2.0          :  1.4.1 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0               :  5.1.0 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0           :  2.2.0 (OK)
cookiecutter >=1.6.0          :  2.1.1 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111   :  20200713 (OK)
intervaltree >=3.0.2          :  3.0.2 (OK)
IPython >=7.31.1;<8.0.0       :  7.33.0 (OK)
jedi >=0.17.2;<0.19.0         :  0.18.2 (OK)
jellyfish >=0.7               :  0.9.0 (OK)
jsonschema >=3.2.0            :  4.17.3 (OK)
keyring >=17.0.0              :  23.11.0 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0               :  7.2.7 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0              :  1.5.0 (OK)
paramiko >=2.4.0              :  2.12.0 (OK)
parso >=0.7.0;<0.9.0          :  0.8.3 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0               :  4.8.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4             :  0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3                  :  5.9.4 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                :  2.13.0 (OK)
pylint >=2.5.0;<3.0           :  2.15.9 (OK)
pylint_venv >=2.1.1           :  2.3.0 (OK)
pyls_spyder >=0.4.0           :  0.4.0 (OK)
pylsp >=1.6.0;<1.7.0          :  1.6.0 (OK)
pylsp_black >=1.2.0           :  1.2.1 (OK)
qdarkstyle >=3.0.2;<3.1.0     :  3.0.3 (OK)
qstylizer >=0.2.2             :  0.2.2 (OK)
qtawesome >=1.2.1             :  1.2.1 (OK)
qtconsole >=5.4.0;<5.5.0      :  5.4.0 (OK)
qtpy >=2.1.0                  :  2.3.0 (OK)
rtree >=0.9.7                 :  1.0.1 (OK)
setuptools >=49.6.0           :  65.6.3 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                :  5.3.0 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=2.4.0;<2.5.0 :  2.4.1 (OK)
textdistance >=4.2.0          :  4.5.0 (OK)
three_merge >=0.1.1           :  0.1.1 (OK)
watchdog >=0.10.3             :  2.2.0 (OK)
zmq >=22.1.0                  :  24.0.1 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                 :  None (NOK)
matplotlib >=3.0.0            :  3.6.2 (OK)
numpy >=1.7                   :  1.24.0 (OK)
pandas >=1.1.1                :  None (NOK)
scipy >=0.17.0                :  1.9.3 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                 :  1.11.1 (OK)

[GuoZhengJian]

我今天也遇到了同样的问题, 正在尝试回退版本

[GuoZhengJian]

我是5.4.1启动后闪退， 回退到5.4.0版本问题得到解决

[ccordoba12]

Hey @MKHoffmann, thanks for reporting, We'll fix this error in our next version (5.4.2), to be released as soon as possible due to its severity.