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Multiple test failures with OSError: [Errno 84] Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character on ZFS with utf8only=on #81765

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@dimitern
mannequin
BPO 37584
Nosy @gpshead, @vstinner, @benjaminp, @ezio-melotti, @serhiy-storchaka, @dimitern
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  • cpython_test_output.log: Tests output
  • Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.

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    GitHub fields:

    assignee = None
    closed_at = None
    created_at = <Date 2019-07-13.10:13:56.997>
    labels = ['type-bug', '3.9', '3.10', '3.11', 'tests', 'expert-unicode']
    title = 'Multiple test failures with OSError: [Errno 84] Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character on ZFS with utf8only=on'
    updated_at = <Date 2021-12-13.02:23:38.746>
    user = 'https://github.com/dimitern'

    bugs.python.org fields:

    activity = <Date 2021-12-13.02:23:38.746>
    actor = 'gregory.p.smith'
    assignee = 'none'
    closed = False
    closed_date = None
    closer = None
    components = ['Tests', 'Unicode']
    creation = <Date 2019-07-13.10:13:56.997>
    creator = 'dimitern'
    dependencies = []
    files = ['48475']
    hgrepos = []
    issue_num = 37584
    keywords = []
    message_count = 5.0
    messages = ['347794', '347801', '347998', '348006', '408420']
    nosy_count = 6.0
    nosy_names = ['gregory.p.smith', 'vstinner', 'benjamin.peterson', 'ezio.melotti', 'serhiy.storchaka', 'dimitern']
    pr_nums = []
    priority = 'normal'
    resolution = None
    stage = 'test needed'
    status = 'open'
    superseder = None
    type = 'behavior'
    url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue37584'
    versions = ['Python 3.9', 'Python 3.10', 'Python 3.11']

    Activity

    1. dimitern commented on Jul 13, 2019

      dimiternmannequin
      MannequinAuthor

      I'm running Ubuntu 19.04 on a ZFS mirrored pool, where my home partition is configured with 'utf8only=on' attribute. I've cloned cpython and after running the tests, as described in devguide.python.org, I have 11 test failures:

      == Tests result: FAILURE ==

      389 tests OK.

      11 tests failed:
      test_cmd_line_script test_httpservers test_imp test_import
      test_ntpath test_os test_posixpath test_socket test_unicode_file
      test_unicode_file_functions test_zipimport

      I've been looking for similar or matching reported issues, but could not find one. I'm on the EuroPython 2019 CPython sprint and we'll be looking into this with the help of some of the core devs.

    2. dimitern commented on Jul 13, 2019

      dimiternmannequin
      MannequinAuthor

      Here's some additional information I found for that specific attribute:

      From the documentation at
      http://dlc.sun.com/osol/docs/content/ZFSADMIN/gazss.html
      (link is dead, but here's where I found the section below: https://zfs-discuss.opensolaris.narkive.com/3NqQVG0H/utf8only-and-normalization-properties#post1)

      utf8only
      Boolean
      Off
      This property indicates whether a file system should reject file names
      that include characters that are not present in the UTF-8 character code
      set. If this property is explicitly set to off, the normalization
      property must either not be explicitly set or be set to none. The
      default value for the utf8only property is off. This property cannot be
      changed after the file system is created.

    3. ezio-melotti commented on Jul 16, 2019

      @ezio-melotti
      Member

      I think Dimiter was able to fix most of the failures, except test_unicode_file_functions.
      Yesterday during the sprints we were looking at it, and we did some tests using the following snippet:

      import os
      import unicodedata
      upsilon_diaeresis_and_hook = "ϔ"
      
      for form in ["NFC", "NFD", "NFKC", "NFKD"]:                       
        unicode_filename = unicodedata.normalize(form, upsilon_diaeresis_and_hook)
        with open(unicode_filename, "w") as f: f.write(form)
        print("N:", ascii(unicode_filename))
        print([ascii(filename) for filename in os.listdir('.')])

      On ext4 this creates 4 different files: ['\u03d4', '\u03d2\u0308', '\u03ab', '\u03a5\u0308']
      On ZFS with utf8only=true (and I believe normalization=formD), only 2 files are created but each of the 4 filenames can be used to access either of the 2 files.
      This is also the default behavior on Mac.

      The test is already skipped on darwin (Lib/test/test_unicode_file_functions.py:120), and should be skipped for ZFS too (might depend on the exact flags used), however we weren't able to find a portable way to determine the filesystem and flags.

      An alternative is to try creating the 4 files and skip the test if only 2 gets created and if all the names can be used to open these two files, however this might mask other failures. Unless someone can come up with a better way to do this, I think this is the only option.

      In addition, different filesystems that don't exhibit this behavior can be used on Mac, so the test shouldn't be skipped in those cases.

    4. vstinner commented on Jul 16, 2019

      @vstinner
      Member

      """
      On ext4 this creates 4 different files: ['\u03d4', '\u03d2\u0308', '\u03ab', '\u03a5\u0308']
      On ZFS with utf8only=true (and I believe normalization=formD), only 2 files are created but each of the 4 filenames can be used to access either of the 2 files.
      This is also the default behavior on Mac.

      The test is already skipped on darwin (Lib/test/test_unicode_file_functions.py:120), and should be skipped for ZFS too (might depend on the exact flags used), however we weren't able to find a portable way to determine the filesystem and flags.
      """

      I suggest to create a temporary directory, create the 4 files and see how many files you can using os.listdir(). If you get 4, the FS doesn't normalize anything. If you get less, it's likely that the FS normalizes names.

    5. gpshead commented on Dec 13, 2021

      @gpshead
      Member

      Confirmed.

      Repro: Do an ubuntu 20.04 install and choose "experimental zfs" support during install - https://ubuntu.com/blog/zfs-focus-on-ubuntu-20-04-lts-whats-new). On such a zfs filesystem, the following tests from a ./python -m test.regrtest run fail in 3.10:

      11 tests failed:
      test_cmd_line_script test_httpservers test_imp test_import
      test_ntpath test_os test_posixpath test_socket test_unicode_file
      test_unicode_file_functions test_zipimport

      Move over to a tmpfs and all but test_httpservers now pass. test_httpservers tries to create such a path on /tmp

      ======================================================================
      ERROR: test_undecodable_filename (test.test_httpservers.SimpleHTTPServerTestCase)
      ----------------------------------------------------------------------

      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "/home/greg/test/cpython/Lib/test/test_httpservers.py", line 400, in test_undecodable_filename
          with open(os.path.join(self.tempdir, filename), 'wb') as f:
      OSError: [Errno 84] Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character: '/tmp/tmpnt9ch98x/@test_124227_tmp\udce7w\udcf0.txt'

      I expect any filesystem mounted to reject non-UTF8 pathnames to cause similar failures. Our test suite needs to detect this environment and skip these tests there.

    6. added
      3.11only security fixes
      and removed on Dec 13, 2021
    7. 5 remaining items

    8. erlend-aasland commented on Oct 10, 2024

      @erlend-aasland
      Contributor

      test_sqlite3 has multiple "undecodable path" tests that fail on ZFS. Marking the following issues as duplicates of this issue:

    9. added
      3.12only security fixes
      3.13only security fixes
      and removed
      3.11only security fixes
      on Oct 10, 2024
    10. erlend-aasland commented on Oct 10, 2024

      @erlend-aasland
      Contributor

      ISTM we need a test support helper that can identify OS conditions such as this particular ZFS configuration. When that is in place, we can gate all "undecodable path" tests using this condition.

    11. igoose1 commented on Oct 30, 2024

      @igoose1

      Temporary workarounds if you need to build python on system with ZFS:

      1. Build without optimizations.

      2. OR build with optimizations in tempfs.

      mkdir buildpy
      mount -t tmpfs -o size=512M tmpfs buildpy  # may require root
      # download source code, in my case it's "Python-3.13.0.tgz"
      tar xf /path/to/Python-3.13.0.tgz -C buildpy
      cd buildpy/Python-3.13.0  # your path can differ
      ./configure --enable-optimizations  # your flags can differ
      make -j16  # your flags can differ

      At the end, there's ./python built with optimizations. This works because building is done in a different file system. Don't forget to umount buildpy directory.

    12. removed
      3.12only security fixes
      3.13only security fixes
      on Jun 4, 2025
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