kde-guidance user management broken

[Tero Keinänen]

Binary package hint: kde-guidance

The kde-guidance user management module seems to be broken, it doesn't start and when I open it from the command line, it outputs this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/userconfig", line 1713, in <module>
    userconfigapp = UserConfigApp()
  File "/usr/bin/userconfig", line 267, in __init__
    self.admincontext = unixauthdb.getContext(isroot)
  File "/usr/share/python-support/kde-guidance/unixauthdb.py", line 74, in getContext
    return PwdContext(editmode)
  File "/usr/share/python-support/kde-guidance/unixauthdb.py", line 727, in __init__
    for line in fhandle.readlines():
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/codecs.py", line 626, in readlines
    return self.reader.readlines(sizehint)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/codecs.py", line 535, in readlines
    data = self.read()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/codecs.py", line 424, in read
    newchars, decodedbytes = self.decode(data, self.errors)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 1284: ordinal not in range(128)
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/apport_python_hook.py", line 44, in apport_excepthook
    binary = os.path.realpath(os.path.join(os.getcwdu(), sys.argv[0]))
IndexError: list index out of range

Original exception was:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/userconfig", line 1713, in <module>
    userconfigapp = UserConfigApp()
  File "/usr/bin/userconfig", line 267, in __init__
    self.admincontext = unixauthdb.getContext(isroot)
  File "/usr/share/python-support/kde-guidance/unixauthdb.py", line 74, in getContext
    return PwdContext(editmode)
  File "/usr/share/python-support/kde-guidance/unixauthdb.py", line 727, in __init__
    for line in fhandle.readlines():
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/codecs.py", line 626, in readlines
    return self.reader.readlines(sizehint)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/codecs.py", line 535, in readlines
    data = self.read()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/codecs.py", line 424, in read
    newchars, decodedbytes = self.decode(data, self.errors)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 1284: ordinal not in range(128)

Versions are:
Qt: 3.3.7
KDE: 3.5.6
userconfig: 0.7.1

[Fabio Margarido (fabiomargarido)]

I've got the exact same problem with:

$ userconfig --version
Qt: 3.3.7
KDE: 3.5.7
userconfig: 0.7.1

[Richard Birnie (rbirnie-deactivatedaccount)]

Bug confirmed, 2 different users report the same problem

[Vangelis Tasoulas (cyberang3l)]

The same here for a long time now....

[Luka Renko (lure)]

Do you have unicode characters in your /etc/passwd or /etc/group files?

[mathew (meta23)]

I had a similar problem, turned out my environment had a reference to a locale I hadn't installed yet.

[Rich Johnson (nixternal)]

Confirming due to responses and duplicate reports. Is this still an issue in hardy for everyone? Thanks!

[Andreas Wenning (andreas-wenning)]

Which version of the package kde-guidance are you using, where this problem exists?

You can use "dpkg -l kde-guidance" in a terminal to get the current version.

[Oleksa (knedlyk)]

The same for
Qt: 3.3.8b
KDE: 3.5.10
userconfig: 0.8.0

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Karmic Koala. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!