Sitecustomize fails when current directory has non-ascii chars

Description

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. Start Spyder.
2. Open any *.py file.
3. Close Spyder.
4. Open again.

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

The internal python console shows the message “‘import sitecustomize’ failed” and stops loading any further. No commands can be executed. After running spyder --reset it loads normally until the next startup after I had a file opened.

Please provide any additional information below

Version and main components

• Spyder Version: 2.3.8
• Python Version: 2.7.12
• Qt Versions: 4.8.7, PyQt4 (API v2) 4.11.4 on Linux

Optional dependencies

pyflakes >=0.5.0   :  1.1.0 (OK)
pep8 >=0.6         :  None (NOK)
pygments >=1.6     :  2.1 (OK)
IPython >=1.0      :  2.4.1 (OK)
zmq >=2.1.11       :  15.2.0 (OK)
pandas >=0.13.1    :  0.17.1 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6     :  1.3.6 (OK)
psutil >=0.3       :  3.4.2 (OK)
rope >=0.9.2       :  0.10.2 (OK)
jedi >=0.8.1;<0.9.0:  0.9.0 (NOK)
matplotlib >=1.0   :  1.5.1 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3      :  None (NOK)
pylint >=0.25      :  1.5.2 (OK)

[Dschoni]

So, finally back at work, here is the more exact error description:

I open Spyder, I change to a working directory (via GUI) that has special characters (in my case, the german version of ‘Desktop’, which is ‘Arbeitsfläche’). As soon, as I do that, the debug shell throws the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last): File “/home/user/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/spyder/plugins/ipythonconsole.py”, line 845, in set_current_client_working_directory shellwidget.set_cwd(directory) File “/home/user/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/spyder/widgets/ipythonconsole/shell.py”, line 87, in set_cwd “get_ipython().kernel.set_cwd(r’{}')”.format(dirname)) UnicodeEncodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character u’\xe4’ in position 23: ordinal not in range(128)

When I close Spyder in this state and restart it (without resetting), the debug shell shows:

Traceback (most recent call last): File “/home/user/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site.py”, line 498, in execsitecustomize import sitecustomize File “/home/user/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/spyder/utils/site/sitecustomize.py”, line 241, in <module> import matplotlib File “/home/user/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/init.py”, line 1138, in <module> rcParams = rc_params() File “/home/user/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/init.py”, line 971, in rc_params fname = matplotlib_fname() File “/home/user/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/init.py”, line 786, in matplotlib_fname cwd = os.getcwdu() UnicodeDecodeError: ‘ascii’ codec can’t decode byte 0xc3 in position 23: ordinal not in range(128)

leading to a failing import of sitecustomize and therefore unstable internal console. Resetting solves the problem (as I guess, it resets the current working directory to a default, without special characters).

[Dschoni]

?Hi Daniel,

Opening and closing Spyder works reliable. However, the import sitecustomize fails, with the aforementioned traceback.

The error is clearly “ordinal not in range” when closing spyder while in a working directory with non-ascii characters.

This leaves spyder in a “kind-of-working” state, but the internal python console doesn’t work.

It is no matter of a firewall, as we are on Ubuntu without any firewall.

I’ll send the full stack trace as soon as possible.

---

Von: Daniel Althviz Moré [e-mail] Gesendet: Freitag, 9. Dezember 2016 00:25 An: spyder-ide/spyder Cc: Schock, Jonathan; Mention Betreff: Re: [spyder-ide/spyder] Sitecustomize fails when current directory has non-ascii chars (#3407)

Hi again @Dschonihttps://github.com/Dschoni, it’s really strange that it worked for you (at least to close and open Spyder), and then it stopped working. Searching a little bit I think that maybe your problem is about the configuration of your firewall like in this posthttp://stackoverflow.com/q/17258634. From there are some steps that you can follow:

1. Disable the firewall.
2. Reset Spyder and apply default settings.
3. Run Spyder again.
4. Enable the firewall.

Can you see if following these steps make Spyder work again? I will open a new issue for the new error that you post when you ran Spyder 3.0.2. Also if you can use the -v option to print the traceback and paste it here would be great.

You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/3407#issuecomment-265886585, or mute the threadhttps://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AH3ba-SjpClQJrqvOHBjtiCMU8FC-sguks5rGJHggaJpZM4J10sI.