Re: [Puppet Users] Error with service: "invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII"

Mateusz Fiołka
Sun, 19 May 2013 12:18:38 -0000

I''m not sure if it is related to the services. It rather looks like
puppet
related to me.
I''m having a similar problem on a newly created vps. When I do puppet
apply
first time I get the message:

Error: Could not set ''present'' on ensure: invalid byte
sequence in US-ASCII
at 3:/root/mf-prod.pp
Error: Could not set ''present'' on ensure: invalid byte
sequence in US-ASCII
at 3:/root/mf-prod.pp
Wrapped exception:
invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII
Error: /Stage[main]//Package[nginx]/ensure: change from purged to present
failed: Could not set ''present'' on ensure: invalid byte
sequence in
US-ASCII at 3:/root/mf-prod.pp

The mentioned file looks like this:
package { "nginx":
        ensure => "installed"
}

service { "nginx":
        enable => "true",
        ensure => "running"
}

Hexdump:

00000000  70 61 63 6b 61 67 65 20  7b 20 22 6e 67 69 6e 78  |package {
"nginx|
00000010  22 3a 0a 20 20 20 20 20  20 20 20 65 6e 73 75 72  |":.
ensur|
00000020  65 20 3d 3e 20 22 69 6e  73 74 61 6c 6c 65 64 22  |e =>
"installed"|
00000030  0a 7d 0a 0a 73 65 72 76  69 63 65 20 7b 20 22 6e  |.}..service {
"n|
00000040  67 69 6e 78 22 3a 0a 09  65 6e 61 62 6c 65 20 3d  |ginx":..enable
=|
00000050  3e 20 22 74 72 75 65 22  2c 0a 09 65 6e 73 75 72  |>
"true",..ensur|
00000060  65 20 3d 3e 20 22 72 75  6e 6e 69 6e 67 22 0a 7d  |e =>
"running".}|
00000070  0a                                                |.|
00000071

puppet version: 3.2.1-rc1
ruby version: 2.0.0p0 (2013-02-24 revision 39474) [i686-linux]
os: arch linux with systemd service provider


On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 3:14:47 PM UTC+1, jcbollinger
wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, February 18, 2013 11:02:05 PM UTC-6, Patrick wrote:
>>
>>  No, but it''s not related to the manifest. The manifest this
resource is
>> in actually hasn''t changed in months. Also I can reboot the
box and it goes
>> away. Other boxes that aren''t doing it will sometimes start
doing it when
>> they reboot. (at least that''s the behaviour I''ve been
observing, but I have
>> only rebooted a few boxes since this started occurring).
>> So it seems like it''s environmental, but I have no clue what.
>>
>
> I concur.  The diagnostic messages appear to indicate that one of the
> system tools Puppet is using to manage the service (probably /sbin/initctl)
> fails with the given error message.  That could well mean that the
> underlying init script (if any) or the daemon binary itself is failing, and
> initctl is just passing on the result.
>
> You said that the error occurs whenever you run Puppet, but you also said
> it goes away if you reboot.  I''m not sure how to reconcile those.
It may
> matter, because one of the potential problem areas involves whether the
> system tools return the correct response to the service''s
''status''
> command.  If they don''t, then Puppet could try to start it when it
is
> already running, to which the service might object.
>
> You could try to troubleshoot by running the service status, start, stop,
> and restart commands manually, and seeing what happens.  Make sure to use a
> shell with the minimum possible environment -- maybe just a minimal PATH --
> because that''s what the agent will do.  Capture not just the
behavior and
> any messages, but also the status code returned by each command.
>
>
> John