UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xb6 in position 0: invalid start byte

[Dave Angel]

On 07/04/2013 04:37 AM, Νίκος wrote:
> I just started to have this error without changing nothing
>
> in my index.html(template) and metrites.py(which ipen the template)
>
> [Thu Jul 04 11:35:14 2013] [error] [client 108.162.229.97] Original
> exception was: [Thu Jul 04 11:35:14 2013] [error] [client
> 108.162.229.97] Traceback (most recent call last): [Thu Jul 04
> 11:35:14 2013] [error] [client 108.162.229.97]   File
> "/home/nikos/public_html/cgi-bin/metrites.py", line 19, in <module>
> [Thu Jul 04 11:35:14 2013] [error] [client 108.162.229.97]     host =
>  socket.gethostbyaddr( os.environ['REMOTE_ADDR'] )[0] or
> 'UnResolved' [Thu Jul 04 11:35:14 2013] [error] [client
> 108.162.229.97] UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte
> 0xb6 in position 0: invalid start byte [Thu Jul 04 11:35:14 2013]
> [error] [client 108.162.229.97] Premature end of script headers:
> metrites.py
>
>
> Why cant it decode the starting byte? what starting byte is that?

The error message means that somebody is trying to decode a byte string
into Unicode, and using the utf-8 codec for it.  Only certain sequences
are legal in utf-8, and the first byte of a character may not be 0xb6.
So it gives an error.  The question is where does this string come from.


Well, the message shows the source line from metrites.py:

host = socket.gethostbyaddr( os.environ['REMOTE_ADDR'] )[0] or 'UnResolved'

So the most likely candidate is the string in the environment named
"REMOTE_ADDR"  Can you display that string?  it should look like

"11.24.32.4"

or some other valid IP address.


I'm assuming Python 2.7.  You should specify the python version when 
starting a new thread, as we (or at least I) cannot keep track of what 
version everyone's running.




-- 
DaveA