"bad message kind byte" pushing to Launchpad

[Sense Egbert Hofstede]

While trying to push to lp:~qense/unity/gconf-key-doc-reference-fix Bazaar crashed with the following error:
"bzr push lp:~qense/unity/gconf-key-doc-reference-fix
bzr: ERROR: bzrlib.errors.ErrorFromSmartServer: Error received from smart server: ('error', "Generic bzr smart protocol error: Bad message kind byte: '\\xd5'")

 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 853, in exception_to_return_code
     return the_callable(*args, **kwargs)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 1055, in run_bzr
     ret = run(*run_argv)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 661, in run_argv_aliases
     return self.run_direct(**all_cmd_args)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 665, in run_direct
     return self._operation.run_simple(*args, **kwargs)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/cleanup.py", line 122, in run_simple
     self.cleanups, self.func, *args, **kwargs)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/cleanup.py", line 156, in _do_with_cleanups
     result = func(*args, **kwargs)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/builtins.py", line 1146, in run
     use_existing_dir=use_existing_dir)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/push.py", line 92, in _show_push_branch
     create_prefix=create_prefix, use_existing_dir=use_existing_dir)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/branch.py", line 1295, in create_clone_on_transport
     create_prefix=create_prefix, use_existing_dir=use_existing_dir)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/bzrdir.py", line 268, in clone_on_transport
     result_repo.fetch(local_repo, fetch_spec=fetch_spec)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/remote.py", line 1333, in fetch
     find_ghosts=find_ghosts, fetch_spec=fetch_spec)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/decorators.py", line 194, in write_locked
     result = unbound(self, *args, **kwargs)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/repository.py", line 3438, in fetch
     pb=pb, find_ghosts=find_ghosts)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/fetch.py", line 83, in __init__
     self.__fetch()
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/fetch.py", line 109, in __fetch
     self._fetch_everything_for_search(search)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/fetch.py", line 137, in _fetch_everything_for_search
     stream, from_format, [])
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/remote.py", line 1798, in insert_stream
     (verb, path, resume_tokens) + lock_args, byte_stream)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/smart/client.py", line 181, in call_with_body_stream
     expect_response_body=False)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/smart/client.py", line 81, in _call_and_read_response
     expect_body=expect_response_body),
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/smart/message.py", line 306, in read_response_tuple
     _translate_error(self.args)
   File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/smart/message.py", line 361, in _translate_error
     raise errors.ErrorFromSmartServer(error_tuple)
 ErrorFromSmartServer: Error received from smart server: ('error', "Generic bzr smart protocol error: Bad message kind byte: '\\xd5'")

BzrVersion: 2.1.1
CommandLine: ['/usr/bin/bzr', 'push', 'lp:~qense/unity/gconf-key-doc-reference-fix']

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

This looks familiar, I don't recall just where. Andrew - you tracked
down the last occurence, It think?

-Rob

[Andrew Bennetts (spiv)]

Hmm, it rings a bell, but I don't remember where from.

The obvious explanation is that the reply from the server is corrupted somehow; perhaps the server is trying to send garbage, perhaps something other than bzr's hpss code is writing to stdout in the server?

Unfortunately I don't think the LP codehosting server keeps useful bzr trace logs, so we can't look for clues there.