UnicodeDecodeError when I rename a plone site's name

Question

Plone 4.2.5 upgraded from 4.1.4, default_language is zh-cn, default_charset is utf-8 (portal_properties/site_properties).

when I try to rename a Plone site's name in the root page at ip:8080/, a site error is shown:

An error was encountered while publishing this resource. 
Error Type: UnicodeDecodeError
Error Value: ('ascii', '\xe8\xa2\x81\xe4\xba\x88\xe6\xb9\x98', 0, 1, 'ordinal not in range(128)')

Traceback (innermost last):
  Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 126, in publish
  Module ZPublisher.mapply, line 77, in mapply
  Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 46, in call_object
  Module OFS.CopySupport, line 333, in manage_renameObjects
  Module OFS.CopySupport, line 369, in manage_renameObject
  Module zope.event, line 31, in notify
  Module zope.component.event, line 24, in dispatch
  Module zope.component._api, line 136, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.registry, line 321, in subscribers
  Module zope.interface.adapter, line 585, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.event, line 32, in objectEventNotify
  Module zope.component._api, line 136, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.registry, line 321, in subscribers
  Module zope.interface.adapter, line 585, in subscribers
  Module OFS.subscribers, line 101, in dispatchObjectWillBeMovedEvent
  Module zope.container.contained, line 153, in dispatchToSublocations
  Module zope.component._api, line 136, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.registry, line 321, in subscribers
  Module zope.interface.adapter, line 585, in subscribers
  Module OFS.subscribers, line 101, in dispatchObjectWillBeMovedEvent
  Module zope.container.contained, line 153, in dispatchToSublocations
  Module zope.component._api, line 136, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.registry, line 321, in subscribers
  Module zope.interface.adapter, line 585, in subscribers
  Module OFS.subscribers, line 101, in dispatchObjectWillBeMovedEvent
  Module zope.container.contained, line 153, in dispatchToSublocations
  Module zope.component._api, line 136, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.registry, line 321, in subscribers
  Module zope.interface.adapter, line 585, in subscribers
  Module OFS.subscribers, line 101, in dispatchObjectWillBeMovedEvent
  Module zope.container.contained, line 153, in dispatchToSublocations
  Module zope.component._api, line 136, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.registry, line 321, in subscribers
  Module zope.interface.adapter, line 585, in subscribers
  Module OFS.subscribers, line 101, in dispatchObjectWillBeMovedEvent
  Module zope.container.contained, line 153, in dispatchToSublocations
  Module zope.component._api, line 136, in subscribers
  Module zope.component.registry, line 321, in subscribers
  Module zope.interface.adapter, line 585, in subscribers
  Module Products.CMFCore.CMFCatalogAware, line 271, in handleContentishEvent
  Module Products.Archetypes.CatalogMultiplex, line 49, in unindexObject
  Module Products.CMFPlone.CatalogTool, line 393, in uncatalog_object
  Module Products.ZCatalog.ZCatalog, line 508, in uncatalog_object
  Module Products.ZCatalog.Catalog, line 369, in uncatalogObject
  Module Products.PluginIndexes.common.UnIndex, line 286, in unindex_object
  Module Products.PluginIndexes.common.UnIndex, line 157, in removeForwardIndexEntry
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe8 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)

UnicodeDecodeError related problems had ever occurred when I tried to import some folders to a newly created Plone site.

I successfully renamed another Plone site's name. I can not tell what the difference between them is. :(

Answer 1

Your site, at some point, indexed unicode content into the Catalog indexes, effectively breaking them. This may have been due to an old Plone bug, or something an add-on or custom code did wrong.

You can try to run a full reindex with the default Python encoding set to UTF-8 to work around this. The following is not a recommended procedure for production sites; this is just a temporary 'plaster' for your problem.

In your Python site-packages directory, add a file named sitecustomize.py with the contents:

import sys

sys.setdefaultencoding('utf8')

then restart your plone site and attempt the rename or do a full catalog reindex first.

Do remember to remove the sitecustomize.py file again. Setting the default encoding in Python is only going to mask future problems.