software-center crashed with UnicodeDecodeError in _update_pkg_info_table(): 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 8: ordinal not in range(128)

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but this appears to be a "regular" (non-security) bug. I have unmarked it as a security issue since this bug does not show evidence of allowing attackers to cross privilege boundaries nor directly cause loss of data/privacy. Please feel free to report any other bugs you may find.

Hi! Thanks for your bug report. The bug you describe has been fixed in the branch I have linked and should be available in the next release. Please continue to report any bugs you may find in software-center. Thanks again for your help!

Hello messajunior, or anyone else affected,

Accepted software-center into oneiric-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

This bug was fixed in the package software-center - 5.0.2

---------------
software-center (5.0.2) oneiric-proposed; urgency=low

  [ Matthew McGowan ]
  * lp:~mmcg069/software-center/bug861778:
    - improved method, use less widgets and fix case where user
      changes sort method in a search results list (LP: #861778)
  * lp:~mmcg069/software-center/dialog-improvements:
    - improve the widget packing of the submit_review dialog
    - make the dialog-dep-warning dialog neither closable or maximisable
      as per bug LP: #844025
    - make dialog-dependency-alert dialog use a gtkgrid instead of
      gtktable to fix overly big spacing
  * lp:~mmcg069/software-center/container-frame-render-fix:
    - remove the use a clip -> provide a fix for blurry font
      rendering LP: #864855

  [ Michael Vogt ]
  * test/gtk3/test_appview.py:
    - add regression test for bug #861778
  * test/gtk3/test_dialogs.py:
    - add basic test for dependency dialogs
  * softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/dialogs/dependency_dialogs.py:
    - simplfy test setup code
  * softwarecenter/backend/channel_impl/aptchannels.py:
    - delay channel update check 10s to improve startup time
  * softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/widgets/exhibits.py:
    - add workaround for rendering bug of the webkit offscreen window
      that leaves a 8px border around the image
  * debian/control:
    - update Vcs-Bzr to point to the 5.0 branch
    - add "lzma" to the recommends to ensure that opening opera and
      chrome debs works (LP: #868188). python-apt is expecting to
      have a helper that can be called with "lzma -d" to open these
      debs.

  [ Kiwinote ]
  * softwarecenter/db/update.py,
    softwarecenter/enums.py,
    softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/models/appstore2.py:
    - make apps from the canonical store appear in the categories (LP: #874330)
  * softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/availablepane.py:
    - when search is cleared, don't navigate back to lobby if we're in a
      channel view (LP: #875786)
  * softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/viewswitcher.py:
    - don't inherit state.category or state.subcategory upon channel selection
  * softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/appdetailsview_gtk.py:
    - fix UnicodeDecodeError in _update_pkg_info_table() (LP: #868834)
      this indirectly makes banners work again in certain locales (LP: #873078)

  [ Robert Roth ]
  * Only catch button release in exhibit if button was also pressed on
    exhibit (LP: #875043)

  [ Gary Lasker ]
  * softwarecenter/db/update.py:
    - fix reinstall previous purchases functionality for locales
      that require unicode (LP: #873917)
  * setup.py:
    - force 11.10 as the release as this is the target
      version of 5.0
 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:43:01 +0200