Installation failed when path to the ISO contains non-ascii characters

[Stanislav Hanzhin]

Binary package hint: usb-creator

usb-creator-gtk version: 0.2.12
Ubuntu 9.10

When the path to ISO-file contains non-ascii Unicode characters, usb-creator-gtk fails with "installation failed".

[SRU request]
Impact:
users cannot create usb startup disk unless moving ISO.
ISO files are downloaded to xdg-downloads directory, and translated xdg-downloads directory's name usually contains non-ASCII characters.
users who want to make Lucid startup disk on Karmic machine may face this error.

fixed in version 0.2.21
and exact change is the following:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~usb-creator-hackers/usb-creator/trunk/revision/292

TEST CASE:
1. Move ISO to "/home/user/DIRECTORY_NAME/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso" (DIRECTORY_NAME contains non-ascii character)
2. Launch usb-creator-gtk and select the ISO
3. Press "Make Startup Disk"
4. Get "Installation failed" message

Expected result:
Press "Make Startup Disk",
then start writing to USB stick
and done.

[Nobuto Murata (nobuto)]

I faced the same problem.
I added my .usbcreator.log.

Log file ends with the line,
"TypeError: execv() arg 2 must contain only strings"

"Downloads" folder is translated to each languages.
And ISO images are downloaded to "Downloads" directory.
So, many users may face this problem.

[®om (rom1v)]

Same problem, which is a bit annoying because in French, the default download directory is "Téléchargements", so if I download a .iso (using bittorrent), and try to put the .iso on the key, it doesn't work (and no information is given about the cause).

[Vincent Lönngren (bice77)]

In Swedish the default download directory is "Hämtningar".

[Nick Bagios (nickbagi)]

I am confirm this bug in Greek system language too. The folder name of download is "Λήψεις" in KDE 4.3.2
Kubuntu 9.10
usb-creator-kde

[reg (rgaudin)]

Also affected.

This bug is not likely to be fixed in karmic since it's a consequence of a python 2.x bug.

http://bugs.python.org/issue6135
http://bugs.python.org/issue1759845

Fixing it would require one of the following:

. patch python
. patch usb-creator to warn user (lame and easy)
. rename the file on-the-fly (ugly)
. patch usb-creator not to use Subprocess.Popen (would create other issues)
. wait for python3

[Cedric Veilleux (cveilleux)]

Just lost a few hours because of this bug. My system is in French and the process would fail with "Installation failed" message and nothing else..

Took me a while to find the error in the log.

I understand this is a python bug and that is fine, but the process should at least fail with a more useful error message or a pointer to the log file!

[Manolis Kapernaros (kapcom01)]

Unbelieavable! :D
I never thought it will be the name of the directory!
Mine is in Greek...

I agree with Cedric Veilleux. If i knew where the log is, i would have save much time..

[Jesper Sandström (inthevidual)]

I second the opinions of Veilleux and Kapernaros, a simple description of where to find the log will save many hours until a fix is possible.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package usb-creator - 0.2.21

---------------
usb-creator (0.2.21) lucid; urgency=low

  [ Evan Dandrea ]
  * Encode ISO path with UTF-8 when mounting (LP: #460298).

  [ Roderick B. Greening ]
  * Update KDE Frontend to work with newer PyQt bindings (LP: #553243).
  * Bump version to 0.2.21 in setup.py, kde_about.py, usb-creator-gtk,
    and man pages.
  * Add explicit version requirement to depend on latest usb-creator-gtk
    for usb-creator.
 -- Evan Dandrea <email address hidden> Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:42:12 +0100

[Nobuto Murata (nobuto)]

SRU: minimal patch for Karmic is attached

Nominating for SRU, fulfills: (1) have an obviously safe patch and (2) affect an application rather than critical infrastructure packages

[Apteryx (maxco)]

It seems this bug reappeared on Ubuntu 13.10. Using usb-creator-gtk 0.2.23, I can reproduce the problem when trying to use an iso image located in the downloads folder (LANG=fr_CA.UTF-8): ~/Téléchargements/. If I move the iso to ~/, which contains no special character, then the error is resolved. I also tried with other directory names containing special characters and it failed in the same way. Could someone reopen this bug?

[David Tombs (dgtombs)]

Hi, please open a new bug report by hitting Alt+F2 and running "ubuntu-bug usb-creator".

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