GpgmeError raised importing public gpg key

[Diogo Matsubara]

As seen on OOPS-1569O128 a GpgmeError: (7, 1, 'General error') was raised while importing a public gpg key.

This is similar to bug 61915 but not the same thing.

[Gary Poster (gary)]

We'll hope that the new version of the gpgme code that will be part of the next release will make this problem go away--or at least give us better diagnostics!

[Diogo Matsubara (matsubara)]

Seems like the new version gives us unicode exceptions rather than plain strings. See OOPS-1594O2131

[Curtis Hovey (sinzui)]

I thought I saw a pastebin of a patch that was cowboyed on a machine that cast the uncide to ascii. Something like:
    result = context.import_(str(newkey))

Why can't we do this?

[Curtis Hovey (sinzui)]

This is the error we are seeing

  Module lp.registry.browser.person, line 3686, in claim_gpg
    key = gpghandler.retrieveKey(self.fingerprint)
  Module canonical.launchpad.utilities.gpghandler, line 431, in retrieveKey
    key = self.importPublicKey(pubkey)
  Module canonical.launchpad.utilities.gpghandler, line 231, in importPublicKey
    result = context.import_(newkey)
GpgmeError: (7, 1, u'General error')

[Curtis Hovey (sinzui)]

Michael fixed a unicode error in gpghandler.
https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~michael.nelson/launchpad/ppa-generate-key-failure/+merge/24871

I think we want to generalise this or just ensure we do not pass what we have not cast.

[Brad Crittenden (bac)]

I've tried to reproduce this problem locally using the fingerprint shown in the OOPS hooked up to the real keyserver but have not seen a failure. The OOPS tool also shows this particular error hasn't occurred recently.

Am closing for now until we see a reoccurrence.