system-config-printer crash UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xe9 in position 1441: invalid continuation byte (only UTF-8-encoded PPD files can be used)

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Tim, it seems that system-config-printer needs some facility to make it non-fatal when a (corrupted, broken, ...) PPD file containing bytes which cannot get UTF-8 decoded. Can you have a look?

On my system the bug was caused by a PPD encoded in Windows-1252 instead of UTF-8.
After re-encoding the file, everything was fine !

It would be cool to have an error message like "Unable to read PPD file, please check the file".

Can you attach the PPD file? Is it part of the Ubuntu system or did you install it separately?

Fixed upstream:
https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/system-config-printer.git/commit/?h=1.4.x&id=2ba173ad0a072043f331ed2c2feb9eaeab305cb8

This bug was fixed in the package system-config-printer - 1.5.4+20141212-0ubuntu1

---------------
system-config-printer (1.5.4+20141212-0ubuntu1) vivid; urgency=medium

  * New upstream release
     o GIT 1.5.x snapshot from 12 December 2014
     o Fixed all problems which prevented the automatic download of printer
       driver packages (LP: #1401835).
     o Handle non-UTF8 PPD files (LP: #1400232).
     o Use 'with' when dealing with temporary files.
     o troubleshoot: get logs from cups.service, not just cupsd
     o Avoid traceback (Red Hat bug #1171469).
     o Fixed 'Search' button icon.
     o Debug output showing DBus exception message.
     o Fixed display of downloadable drivers (Red Hat bug #1167978).
     o Prevent backtrace (Red Hat bug #1167978).
     o Refresh job-printer-uri in update_job
     o Consider version suffixes in Nickname for PPDs from Canon drivers
       (fedorahosted.org bug #235).
     o Extract hostname from hp:/net/...?hostname= URIs when grouping by
       physical device (Red Hat bug #1154686).
     o Codec fix for AuthDialog.get_auth_info (Red Hat bug #1060453).
     o Catch IPPError when writing server settings (Red Hat bug #1159584).
     o OpenPrintingRequest lock handling fixes
     o Never set SMB Verify button sensitive without checking pysmb is
       available
     o PackageKit-based installation of smb backend on demand is now fixed
     o Ubuntu fix for on demand installation of libsane-hpaio
     o HP MFP devices that cannot scan are now properly detected
     o ppdcache: handle errors more gracefully
     o Don't try to remove gobject sources that are already removed
     o A Python 3 fix when dealing with HPLIP fax devices
     o Fixed physical device grouping by using the cupshelpers.ppds
       'normalize' function for comparisons
     o Cancel deferred timer on quit (possible fix for Red Hat bug #1145388)
     o Don't use deprecated GTK+ widgets and properties
     o React to button-press-event for Move To submenu in jobviewer
       (LP: #1388601)
  * debian/patches/35_package-download-fixes.patch: Removed, included upstream.
 -- Till Kamppeter <email address hidden> Fri, 12 Dec 2014 19:41:08 +0100

Uploaded packages fixing bug 1398444, bug 1400232, and bug 1401835 to trusty-proposed and utopic-proposed. As soon as the packages are approved they will be available for download and testing and instructions will get posted here. Please test the packages and give your feedback here, otherwise they will not get available as official update.

Hello Doudz, or anyone else affected,

Accepted system-config-printer into utopic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/system-config-printer/1.5.1+20141010-0ubuntu2.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Hello Doudz, or anyone else affected,

Accepted system-config-printer into trusty-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/system-config-printer/1.4.3+20140219-0ubuntu2.4 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I can't help since I'm working on utopic now and everything is fine since the last update 1.5.1+20141010-0ubuntu2.1

with this last update this is what I get from command line

Bad UTF-8 string "Module de finition/Bac r�cepteur" changed to "Module de finition/Bac r?cepteur"
Bad UTF-8 string "Bac � d�calage" changed to "Bac ? d?calage"
Bad UTF-8 string "Unit� de perforation" changed to "Unit? de perforation"
Bad UTF-8 string "Install�(e)" changed to "Install?(e)"
Bad UTF-8 string "Non install�(e)" changed to "Non install?(e)"
Bad UTF-8 string "Install�(e)" changed to "Install?(e)"
Bad UTF-8 string "Non install�(e)" changed to "Non install?(e)"

But everything is working.
I'll attach the bad ppd

badly encoded ppd

Doudz thank you for the PPD file. I have tested the proposed package of system-config-printer with it and system-config-printer does not crash any more. I also get the same console messages as you got. So the proposed package for Trusty also fixes this bug. Marking as verified.

Verified by Doudz for Utopic (comment #10), by me for Trusty (comment #12).

The proposed system-config-printer package for Trusty got a dependency on cups-filters-ippusbxd accidentally (binary package system-config-printer-udev). Therefore please reject the package in trusty-proposed. I will upload a corrected -0ubuntu2.5 immediately then.

Uploaded system-config-printer_1.4.3+20140219-0ubuntu2.5 to trusty-proposed with the dependency on cups-filters-ippusbxd removed. See bug 1409263.

This bug was fixed in the package system-config-printer - 1.5.1+20141010-0ubuntu2.2

---------------
system-config-printer (1.5.1+20141010-0ubuntu2.2) utopic-proposed; urgency=medium

  * debian/patches/70_package-download-fixes.patch: Fixed several bugs to
    make automatic printer driver download working again (LP: #1401835):
     o Use pyrequests instead of pycurl for secure (verified certificate)
       downloads. pycurl stopped working after the OpenPrinting web server
       has moved from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04 (LP: #1394244).
     o In the install-printerdriver script improved the check for the
       necessity of adding the driver's Debian repository and added a
       workaround for a bug in aptdaemon interpreting PackageKit's package
       IDs wrongly when installing a package (LP: #1397750).
     o In fillDriverList() use ".hasattr()" to check presence of
       attributes.
     o Python3 transition bugs
  * debian/patches/73_support-non-utf-8-encoded-ppds.patch: Do not
    crash on non-UTF-8-encoded PPD files (LP: #1400232)
  * debian/control: Depend on python-requests instead of on python-pycurl.
 -- Till Kamppeter <email address hidden> Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:01:26 +0100

The verification of the Stable Release Update for system-config-printer has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

Re-subscribing ubuntu-sru for the SRU on Trusty.

I have tested the new proposed package of system-config-printer for Trusty (-0ubuntu2.5) with the sample PPD file and system-config-printer does not crash any more. I also get the same console messages as shown. So this package also fixes this bug. Marking as verified.

This bug was fixed in the package system-config-printer - 1.4.3+20140219-0ubuntu2.5

---------------
system-config-printer (1.4.3+20140219-0ubuntu2.5) trusty-proposed; urgency=medium

  * debian/patches/35_ipp-over-usb-support.patch: Removed, IPP-over-USB support
    was not yet intended with this SRU.
  * debian/control: Removed dependency on cups-filters-ippusbxd package
    (LP: #1409263).
 -- Till Kamppeter <email address hidden> Sat, 10 Jan 2014 17:19:26 +0100