Installation Issues with Non-ASCII Characters

[Katya]

Dear Ladybug team,

thank you for the nice update!

I have an installation issue:
Step 1 works well. In step 2, when toggling True, after some successful steps, the component returns an error.

Hereby is the content of the output panel:

{0;0}

0. Installing Ladybug Tools core Python libraries.

1. Installing lbt-dragonfly[cli]==0.5.1 via pip using
   C:\Users\Екатерина\ladybug_tools\python\python.exe

2. Ladybug Tools core Python libraries successfully installed!

3. Installing Queenbee core Python libraries.

4. Installing queenbee-luigi[cli]==0.5.6 via pip using
   C:\Users\Екатерина\ladybug_tools\python\python.exe

5. Queenbee core Python libraries successfully installed!

6. Installing ladybug-rhino Python library.

7. Installing ladybug-rhino[cli]==1.19.1 via pip using
   C:\Users\Екатерина\ladybug_tools\python\python.exe

8. Ladybug-rhino Python library successfully installed!

9. Runtime error (EncoderFallbackException): ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character ‘\u415’ in position 12: ordinal not in range(128)

Traceback:
line 303, in write_iron_python_batch_file, “”
line 483, in script

I have the Ladybug legacy installed, could it still cause this issue or it has to do with something else?

Thank you in advance for your reply!

Kind regards,
Katya

[chris]

Hi @Katya ,

This issue is happening because you have this character somewhere within a file path:

Е CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER IE (U+415)

Do you have this character on your computer username? If not, I’ll give you a few other places to check.

[Katya]

Hi chris,

Thank you for the fast reply! Indeed, I had Cyrillic user folder name. After renaming, it worked! Thanks!

Best,
Katya

[alekkei]

hello i am having the same problem can you elaborate further??

[chris]

The answer has been elaborated here:

Problem installing ladybug 1.4

This issue happens because you have a non-ASCII character in your username. Historically, the way to get around this has been to just create a new user profile on your machine without ASCII characters. However, we are about to release LBT 1.5 in the next few days, which we’re happy to say is the first release to have full support for non-ASCII characters. So you could use the old workaround or just wait a few days until we officially release LBT 1.5.

[v_lipa]

Hi Chris,
This problem is not solved in the new version (1.5.0)

I can’t change the name of the \C:\Users[username] folder
It is inconvenient to work with a new username

1. Created a new ASCII User
2. Installed both steps. Everything works correctly
3. Copied all installed files from C:\Users [ASCII-USERNAME] and C:\Users and [ASCII-USERNAME]\AppData\roaming\grasshopper\library folders in old [non-ascii-username]
4. Launched a new definition in gh (not ascii user)
   ladybug did not work correctly

How do I install ladybug 1.5.0 correctly for a non-ascii username folder (home_folder)?

In the oldest version, all the steps were installed correctly
In version 1.4.0 only the first step
In version 1.5.0 none

STEP 1

Runtime error (EncoderFallbackException): ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character ‘\u412’ in position 9: ordinal not in range(128)

Traceback:
line 121, in script

line 117-138

if _setup_python:
    # create the installation folder
    home_folder = os.getenv('HOME') or os.path.expanduser('~')
    try:
        home_folder.decode('ascii')
    except UnicodeDecodeError:
        msg = 'Your username folder "{}" contains non-ASCII characters\n' \
            'While the latest version of Ladybug Tools supports most non-ASCII ' \
            'characters, there are some characters that can still cause issues.\n' \
            'To avoid all poential problems, you can create a new username with ' \
            'non-ASCII characters and install Ladybug Tools from that'.format(home_folder)
        print(msg)
        give_warning(msg)
    lb_folder = os.path.join(home_folder, 'ladybug_tools')
    if not os.path.isdir(lb_folder):
        os.makedirs(lb_folder)
        print('Ladybug Tools installation folder created at:\n'
              '{}\n '.format(lb_folder))
    else:
        print('Ladybug Tools installation folder already exists at:\n'
              '{}\n '.format(lb_folder))

[chris]

Hi @v_lipa ,

If you really want to use your non-ASCII username, I recommend using the free single-click Pollination Grasshopper installer that you can get here after making a pollination account.

That will set up the installation in “Program Files” instead of your user folder and this should save you from a lot of headaches and hacking that you seem to be doing now.