utf-8 error, when load par file

[jlzhang001]

When I try to run libstempo-toasim-demo.ipynb, it shows utf-8 error. The detail info pasted below. Could you help me to check this problem? Thanks. @vallis @mattpitkin

Python version : 3.7.12
libstempo version: 2.4.5
Tempo2 version : 2022.5.1

UnicodeDecodeError Traceback (most recent call last)
/tmp/ipykernel_27615/1593190486.py in
1 psr = T.tempopulsar(parfile = T.data + 'B1953+29_NANOGrav_dfg+12.par',
----> 2 timfile = T.data + 'B1953+29_NANOGrav_dfg+12.tim')
3 LP.plotres(psr)

libstempo/libstempo.pyx in libstempo.libstempo.tempopulsar.cinit()

libstempo/libstempo.pyx in libstempo.libstempo.tempopulsar._readflags()

libstempo/libstempo.pyx in libstempo.libstempo.lambda1()

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xe9 in position 0: invalid continuation byte

[astrophysics91]

Hi, I just noticed that I had the same error. My solution was using the previous version of libstempo: 2.4.3?

[astrophysics91]

It was working for me

[F-W-Yang]

Hi, I just noticed that I had the same error. My solution was using the previous version of libstempo: 2.4.3?

I installed the previous version of libstempo=2.4.3, but when I tried to load J1909-3744_NANOGrav_dfg+12.par and the corresponding timfile, there is another error message showing up "Segmentation fault (core dumped)". Did you encounter this error before?

Python version=3.10.4, Tempo2 version: 2021.7.1.

[F-W-Yang]

Hi, I just noticed that I had the same error. My solution was using the previous version of libstempo: 2.4.3?

I installed the previous version of libstempo=2.4.3, but when I tried to load J1909-3744_NANOGrav_dfg+12.par and the corresponding timfile, there is another error message showing up "Segmentation fault (core dumped)". Did you encounter this error before?

Python version=3.10.4, Tempo2 version: 2021.7.1.

For those who have the same issue, you can conda install an older version of libstempo=2.4.0 (which will automatically installed an old version of Tempo2=2020.111) to solve the above error. It seems that the incompatibility between the new version of Tempo2 and the version of the Python wrapper libstempo causes the error.

By the way, in my conda environment, the Python version = 3.6.13.

[mattpitkin]

@jlzhang001 @F-W-Yang can you confirm whether this is still an issue with the latest versions of libstempo/tempo2?

[mattpitkin]

I am actually seeing this error too in certain environments with the latest version of libstempo and tempo2, although I can't figure out why (it also works in other environments with the latest versions too!)

[mattpitkin]

What I think is happening here is the following - libstempo is built with a different version of tempo2 to that being used at runtime. In particular, versions where the sizes of certain data structures have been updated.

When libstempo is built, the pyx file includes that parameter, observation and pulsar structures from the tempo2 header file that is available, which will have particular sizes. If tempo2 is then updated to a version where the structure of parameter, observation and pulsar have been changed, then libstempo will pass a differently sized structure to functions that expect the new size. When the par file is being read in, you might therefore get parts of the pulsar structure just pointing to random bits of memory, which manifest as a utf-8 error when those are trying to be decode from byte strings. I haven't confirmed that this is the case, but it seems a likely suspect.