UnicodeDecodeError when running app.py

[dennisfurrer]

I am using Python 3.7 on MacOS. I trained the CNN with the MNIST db and tried running app.py While it starts and I can access it from 127.0.0.1:5000, as soon as I draw a digit and press Predict I get the following console output.

---

• Serving Flask app "app" (lazy loading)
  • Environment: production WARNING: Do not use the development server in a production environment. Use a production WSGI server instead.
  • Debug mode: on
  • Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)
  • Restarting with stat
  • Debugger is active!
  • Debugger PIN: 162-250-119 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2018 00:29:18] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 - 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2018 00:29:18] "GET /static/style/drawingboard.min.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2018 00:29:18] "GET /static/style/application2.min.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2018 00:29:18] "GET /static/style/drawingBoard.min.js HTTP/1.1" 200 - 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2018 00:29:18] "GET /static/style/hermiteResize.js HTTP/1.1" 200 - 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2018 00:29:23] "POST /digit_process HTTP/1.1" 500 - Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2309, in call return self.wsgi_app(environ, start_response) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2295, in wsgi_app response = self.handle_exception(e) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1741, in handle_exception reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/_compat.py", line 35, in reraise raise value File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 2292, in wsgi_app response = self.full_dispatch_request() File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1815, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.handle_user_exception(e) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1718, in handle_user_exception reraise(exc_type, exc_value, tb) File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/_compat.py", line 35, in reraise raise value File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1813, in full_dispatch_request rv = self.dispatch_request() File "/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/app.py", line 1799, in dispatch_request return self.view_functionsrule.endpoint File "/Users/dennisfurrer/Desktop/CNN-from-Scratch/app.py", line 23, in digit_process out = pickle.load(pickle_in) UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xca in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)

[AdityaSoni19031997]

Ain't sure (not a Mac user) but it seems it's just a codec error specific to MAC..

[dennisfurrer]

Any ideas on how to fix it? @AdityaSoni19031997

[AdityaSoni19031997]

If we are lucky, then it should be solved by passing in the encoding parameter while opening that pickle file or try to include this on the top of that file"# -- coding: utf-8 --" or check this discussion https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21129020/how-to-fix-unicodedecodeerror-ascii-codec-cant-decode-byte

[dennisfurrer]

Could you clarify which file you mean? I assumed it was the trained.pickle file but that resulted in an error " _pickle.UnpicklingError: invalid load key, '#'. "

Thank you in advance for your help @AdityaSoni19031997

[AdityaSoni19031997]

It has been quite a while since I ran the code.. but the last line of the traceback where we are opening the pickle file, we might change the encoding...

If nothing works, then we can comment out the flask part maybe ! I am out of ideas as of now..(Sorry for that)

[dennisfurrer]

You mean by adding the encoding type to replace this:

pickle_in = open(PICKLE_FILE, 'rb')

with this:

pickle_in = open(PICKLE_FILE, 'rb', "encoding=utf-8")

?

Then I get the following error: " ValueError: binary mode doesn't take an encoding argument "

[AdityaSoni19031997]

Why the rb, only r should do ? PS I ain't sure but for me it's was always the encoding parameter which I mess up, so fixing that fixes stuff for me..

[AdityaSoni19031997]

pickle_in = open(PICKLE_FILE, 'r', encoding='utf-8');

[dennisfurrer]

thats the code thats on this repository? I'll try replacing it with 'r'

[dennisfurrer]

I now get " TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' "

[nitinseven]

same error I also got on windows with python 3.5 UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xca in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)

any solution?

[yanatarkhaeva]

I assume the solution is to train this network on your Python 3.x and then save the result using pickle (the pickle which is for the third version of Python). So when you'll predict it would unpack the file which is saved by the same module. But this will take approximately 80 hours (on my not-so-powerfull laptop). That's the thing I'm now struggling on. Because I need to learn a neural network of this type by the next day and it's still 50 hours remaining. So if someone has an opportunity to train the network on MNIST dataset faster then me, share the resulting output.pickle file here, please. (English isn't my first language sorry if I made mistakes.)

[dennisfurrer]

Hope this helps @yanatarkhaeva https://github.com/dennisfurrer/cnn-output-pickle

[AdityaSoni19031997]

You can use kaggle kernels/Colab/free GPU to train

[AdityaSoni19031997]

Bytes like object might mean the way we are opening or creating or passing the file name isn't correct ... Happened with me few days back