Trying to publish a release in CI fails with UnicodeDecodeError

Metadata

Project: snapcraft
Number: #5161
Type: issue
State: closed
Author: Nokel81
Labels: —
Created: 2024-11-29 06:47 PM UTC
Updated: 2025-06-05 04:41 PM UTC
Closed: 2025-06-05 01:37 PM UTC

Current evaluation

Closed as a CI credential-entry error: a copied shell prefix corrupted SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS. Refreshing the token fixed publishing; #5536 later improved the error.

Resolution: closed not a bug

Reason: The reporter confirmed that a shell prefix had been copied into the credentials and that replacing the token resolved the failure. PR #5536, merged as commit 3784560f3, added clearer handling for credential decoding errors.

Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot

No scores available.

Issue body

### Bug Description Trying to upload a new snap version using the snapcraft CLI in our CI (Github ubunutu-latest) fails with `UnicodeDecodeError`, but trying to upload the same snap locally on my own ubuntu machine was successful. ### To Reproduce 1. Run `snapcraft upload --verbose --release=edge /home/runner/work/my-app.snap` 2. See error ### Environment Ubuntu 22.04 LTS ### snapcraft.yaml N/A ### Relevant log output ```log Starting snapcraft, version 8.4.4 Logging execution to '/home/runner/.local/state/snapcraft/log/snapcraft-20241129-170703.651006.log' snapcraft internal error: UnicodeDecodeError('utf-8', b'zf\xa2\x96\xc9\x9a\x96\xda\'\x9a*\xda\x9e\xd8\xacr\x89\xae\xb1\xea\xe7jg\xac\x99\xa9m\xa2x\x9d\xe3%\xaa\xf79\xb1ns\xcb<`l\x06\x10\x14M\x03!\'\xb4\x1e\xee\xe5\xb6\xa5\xea\xe6\x8a\xcb"\xa2{)i\xc9\x1a\x81\xe6\x9cq\xeb,\xa5\xa7$j\x07\xa6jv\xa0z\x96\x9c\x91\xa8\x1e\x99\xebk\x89\xcb)i\xc9\x1a\x81\xean\xb2\x1aZrF\xa0z\xb7\xa0\x8a\xcb^\xae\x96\x9c\x91\xa8\x1e\xad\xe9^j\xc7\xa9i\xc9\x1a\x81\xeb\xa9u\xab^r\x16\xa7\x9d\xe9l\x9e\x8a\xde\xb2\xda\xe2r\xd8\xa8\x9e\xc7\xb1\xa6*\xde\xb3m6\xe7]t\xf1=z\xd3\xcd\xf7\xd3M\x19', 2, 3, 'invalid start byte') ``` Full output log ```log 2024-11-29 19:13:45.262 Starting snapcraft, version 8.4.4 2024-11-29 19:13:45.262 Log verbosity level set to BRIEF 2024-11-29 19:13:45.262 Preparing application... 2024-11-29 19:13:45.262 snapcraft 8.4.4 2024-11-29 19:14:46.273 Starting snapcraft, version 8.4.4 2024-11-29 19:14:46.273 Log verbosity level set to BRIEF 2024-11-29 19:14:46.273 Preparing application... 2024-11-29 19:14:46.274 Configuring application... 2024-11-29 19:14:46.275 Setting up ConfigService 2024-11-29 19:14:46.284 Build plan: platform=None, build_for=None 2024-11-29 19:14:46.284 Running snapcraft upload on host 2024-11-29 19:14:46.285 snapcraft internal error: UnicodeDecodeError('utf-8', b'zf\xa2\x96\xc9\x9a\x96\xda\'\x9a*\xda\x9e\xd8\xacr\x89\xae\xb1\xea\xe7jg\xac\x99\xa9m\xa2x\x9d\xe3%\xaa\xf79\xb1ns\xcb<`l\x06\x10\x14M\x03!\'\xb4\x1e\xee\xe5\xb6\xa5\xea\xe6\x8a\xcb"\xa2{)i\xc9\x1a\x81\xe6\x9cq\xeb,\xa5\xa7$j\x07\xa6jv\xa0z\x96\x9c\x91\xa8\x1e\x99\xebk\x89\xcb)i\xc9\x1a\x81\xean\xb2\x1aZrF\xa0z\xb7\xa0\x8a\xcb^\xae\x96\x9c\x91\xa8\x1e\xad\xe9^j\xc7\xa9i\xc9\x1a\x81\xeb\xa9u\xab^r\x16\xa7\x9d\xe9l\x9e\x8a\xde\xb2\xda\xe2r\xd8\xa8\x9e\xc7\xb1\xa6*\xde\xb3m6\xe7]t\xf1=z\xd3\xcd\xf7\xd3M\x19', 2, 3, 'invalid start byte') 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 Traceback (most recent call last): 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/store/_legacy_account.py", line 41, in _load_potentially_base64_config 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 parser.read_string(config_content) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/usr/lib/python3.10/configparser.py", line 725, in read_string 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 self.read_file(sfile, source) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/usr/lib/python3.10/configparser.py", line 720, in read_file 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 self._read(f, source) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/usr/lib/python3.10/configparser.py", line 1087, in _read 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 raise MissingSectionHeaderError(fpname, lineno, line) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 configparser.MissingSectionHeaderError: File contains no section headers. 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 file: '<string>', line: 1 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 '***\n' 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 Traceback (most recent call last): 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/craft_application/application.py", line 568, in run 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 return_code = self._run_inner() 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/application.py", line 215, in _run_inner 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 return_code = super()._run_inner() 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/craft_application/application.py", line 549, in _run_inner 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 return_code = dispatcher.run() or os.EX_OK 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/craft_cli/dispatcher.py", line 487, in run 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 return self._loaded_command.run(self._parsed_command_args) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/commands/upload.py", line 114, in run 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 client = store.StoreClientCLI() 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/store/client.py", line 179, in __init__ 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 self.store_client = get_client(ephemeral=ephemeral) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/store/client.py", line 126, in get_client 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 or LegacyUbuntuOne.env_has_legacy_credentials() 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/store/_legacy_account.py", line 128, in env_has_legacy_credentials 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 get_auth(credentials) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/store/_legacy_account.py", line 86, in get_auth 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 conf = _load_potentially_base64_config(config_content) 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 File "/snap/snapcraft/12961/lib/python3.10/site-packages/snapcraft/store/_legacy_account.py", line 45, in _load_potentially_base64_config 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 decoded_config_content = base64.b64decode(config_content).decode() 2024-11-29 19:14:46.290 UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xa2 in position 2: invalid start byte ``` ### Additional context The snap was built using `electron-builder`

Evaluation history

Date	Model	Scores	Action	Summary
2026-10-03 02:09 AM UTC	stealth/space-bunny-alpha	—	closed not a bug	Closed as a CI credential-entry error: a copied shell prefix corrupted SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS. Refreshing the token fixed publishing; #5536 later improved the error.
2026-09-25 12:47 AM UTC	stealth/space-bunny-alpha	—	closed not a bug	Closed as a CI credential-entry error: an accidentally copied shell prefix corrupted the stored token; refreshing SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS fixed it. craft-store#287 and snapcraft#5536 added clearer errors.
2026-09-08 06:19 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	—	—	Closed as user error. The UnicodeDecodeError during snapcraft upload was caused by accidentally copying shell prefix characters into the SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS token. Refreshing credentials resolved the issue. Improved error handling is tracked in related PRs.
2026-07-23 12:30 PM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	—	—	Closed by author. The CI upload UnicodeDecodeError stemmed from a malformed SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS env var with accidental copy-paste artifacts. Correcting the token resolved the failure. Improved error handling is tracked in separate PRs.
2026-07-17 03:13 AM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	—	—	Resolved by author. The CI UnicodeDecodeError stemmed from accidentally copying shell prefix characters into the SNAPCRAFT_STORE_CREDENTIALS token. Refreshing the environment variable fixed the issue. Maintainers noted upcoming error message improvements via linked PRs.

Update history

No update history recorded yet.

Related work

Likely Fixed By: canonical/snapcraft#5536 (confidence 98%)
Merged commit 3784560f3 replaces the internal decoding traceback with a user-friendly credential parse error.
Related To: canonical/craft-store#287 (confidence 96%)
The maintainer cited this PR alongside #5536 as providing clearer credential error messages.

Related issues

No related issues found above the similarity threshold.