"[Errno -90] NetCDF: file not found: b" when opening netCDF from server

I am currently trying to read netCDF files directly from a THREADS server or from Azure blob storage using xarray.open_dataset using a url. I have tested NetCDFs from several sources and the files themselves appear to be fine. xarray_open_dataset works if I download them to my local environment using either wget.download or just moving the files manually.

MCVE Code Sample

import xarray as xr
url = 'https://ooiopendata.blob.core.windows.net/botpt/NOAA_NCDC_ERSST_v3b_SST.nc'
ds = xr.open_dataset(url)

I have also tested it with these additional urls:

url = 'https://opendap.oceanobservatories.org/async_results/[e-mail]/20191227T065318736Z-RS03ECAL-MJ03E-06-BOTPTA302-streamed-botpt_nano_sample/deployment0001_RS03ECAL-MJ03E-06-BOTPTA302-streamed-botpt_nano_sample_20141005T000000-20141005T235959.nc'

url = 'https://opendap.oceanobservatories.org/thredds/fileServer/ooi/[e-mail]/20191228T052214778Z-RS03ECAL-MJ03E-06-BOTPTA302-streamed-botpt_nano_sample/deployment0001_RS03ECAL-MJ03E-06-BOTPTA302-streamed-botpt_nano_sample_20191005T000000-20191005T235959.950000.nc'

Expected Output - In all cases, the expected output is the xarray dataset:

<xarray.Dataset>
Dimensions:           (time: 1727934)
Coordinates:
    obs               (time) int32 0 1 2 3 4 ... 1727930 1727931 1727932 1727933
  * time              (time) datetime64[ns] 2019-10-05 ... 2019-10-05T23:59:59.949999616
Data variables:
    bottom_pressure   (time) float32 ...
    press_trans_temp  (time) float64 ...
    sensor_id         (time) object ...
Attributes:

Problem Description

As far as I can tell, permissions are not the issue and neither are the files because the url’s will download the files and xarray will open the files that I download. The only thing I am not able to do is open the files with xarray directly from the server. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Output of xr.open_dataset(url)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
KeyError                                  Traceback (most recent call last)
/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/file_manager.py in _acquire_with_cache_info(self, needs_lock)
    197             try:
--> 198                 file = self._cache[self._key]
    199             except KeyError:

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/lru_cache.py in __getitem__(self, key)
     52         with self._lock:
---> 53             value = self._cache[key]
     54             self._cache.move_to_end(key)

KeyError: [<class 'netCDF4._netCDF4.Dataset'>, ('https://ooiopendata.blob.core.windows.net/botpt/NOAA_NCDC_ERSST_v3b_SST.nc',), 'r', (('clobber', True), ('diskless', False), ('format', 'NETCDF4'), ('persist', False))]

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

OSError                                   Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-25-2eaba4f9d881> in <module>
----> 1 ds1 = xr.open_dataset('https://ooiopendata.blob.core.windows.net/botpt/NOAA_NCDC_ERSST_v3b_SST.nc')
      2 ds1

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/api.py in open_dataset(filename_or_obj, group, decode_cf, mask_and_scale, decode_times, autoclose, concat_characters, decode_coords, engine, chunks, lock, cache, drop_variables, backend_kwargs, use_cftime)
    497         if engine == "netcdf4":
    498             store = backends.NetCDF4DataStore.open(
--> 499                 filename_or_obj, group=group, lock=lock, **backend_kwargs
    500             )
    501         elif engine == "scipy":

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py in open(cls, filename, mode, format, group, clobber, diskless, persist, lock, lock_maker, autoclose)
    355             netCDF4.Dataset, filename, mode=mode, kwargs=kwargs
    356         )
--> 357         return cls(manager, group=group, mode=mode, lock=lock, autoclose=autoclose)
    358 
    359     def _acquire(self, needs_lock=True):

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py in __init__(self, manager, group, mode, lock, autoclose)
    311         self._group = group
    312         self._mode = mode
--> 313         self.format = self.ds.data_model
    314         self._filename = self.ds.filepath()
    315         self.is_remote = is_remote_uri(self._filename)

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py in ds(self)
    364     @property
    365     def ds(self):
--> 366         return self._acquire()
    367 
    368     def open_store_variable(self, name, var):

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/netCDF4_.py in _acquire(self, needs_lock)
    358 
    359     def _acquire(self, needs_lock=True):
--> 360         with self._manager.acquire_context(needs_lock) as root:
    361             ds = _nc4_require_group(root, self._group, self._mode)
    362         return ds

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/contextlib.py in __enter__(self)
    110         del self.args, self.kwds, self.func
    111         try:
--> 112             return next(self.gen)
    113         except StopIteration:
    114             raise RuntimeError("generator didn't yield") from None

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/file_manager.py in acquire_context(self, needs_lock)
    184     def acquire_context(self, needs_lock=True):
    185         """Context manager for acquiring a file."""
--> 186         file, cached = self._acquire_with_cache_info(needs_lock)
    187         try:
    188             yield file

/srv/conda/envs/notebook/lib/python3.7/site-packages/xarray/backends/file_manager.py in _acquire_with_cache_info(self, needs_lock)
    202                     kwargs = kwargs.copy()
    203                     kwargs["mode"] = self._mode
--> 204                 file = self._opener(*self._args, **kwargs)
    205                 if self._mode == "w":
    206                     # ensure file doesn't get overriden when opened again

netCDF4/_netCDF4.pyx in netCDF4._netCDF4.Dataset.__init__()

netCDF4/_netCDF4.pyx in netCDF4._netCDF4._ensure_nc_success()

OSError: [Errno -90] NetCDF: file not found: b'https://ooiopendata.blob.core.windows.net/botpt/NOAA_NCDC_ERSST_v3b_SST.nc'

cc @tjcrone

[rabernat]

Update: there is now a way to read a remote netCDF file from an HTTP server directly using the netcdf-python library. The trick is to append #mode=bytes to the end of the url.

import xarray as xr
import netCDF4  # I'm using version 1.5.6

url = "https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~rpa/NOAA_NCDC_ERSST_v3b_SST.nc#mode=bytes"

# raw netcdf4 Dataset
ds = netCDF4.Dataset(url)

# xarray Dataset
ds = xr.open_dataset(url)

[rabernat]

More concise syntax for the same thing

import xarray as xr
import fsspec

url = 'https://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~rpa/NOAA_NCDC_ERSST_v3b_SST.nc'
with fsspec.open(url) as fobj:
    ds = xr.open_dataset(fobj)
    print(ds)