fix: handle UnicodeEncodeError with ASCII codec (#6843)

Broaden the UnicodeEncodeError recovery to handle systems with ASCII-only
locale (LANG=C, Chromebooks) where ANY non-ASCII character causes encoding
failure, not just lone surrogates.

Changes:
- Add _strip_non_ascii() and _sanitize_messages_non_ascii() helpers that
  strip all non-ASCII characters from message content, name, and tool_calls
- Update the UnicodeEncodeError handler to detect ASCII codec errors and
  fall back to non-ASCII sanitization after surrogate check fails
- Sanitize tool_calls arguments and name fields (not just content)
- Fix bare .encode() in cli.py suspend handler to use explicit utf-8
- Add comprehensive test suite (17 tests)
This commit is contained in:
Hermes Audit 2026-04-09 23:21:42 +00:00 committed by Teknium
parent 7e28b7b5d5
commit 71036a7a75
3 changed files with 205 additions and 11 deletions

2
cli.py
View file

@ -7999,7 +7999,7 @@ class HermesCLI:
agent_name = get_active_skin().get_branding("agent_name", "Hermes Agent")
msg = f"\n{agent_name} has been suspended. Run `fg` to bring {agent_name} back."
def _suspend():
os.write(1, msg.encode())
os.write(1, msg.encode("utf-8", errors="replace"))
os.kill(0, _sig.SIGTSTP)
run_in_terminal(_suspend)

View file

@ -380,6 +380,65 @@ def _sanitize_messages_surrogates(messages: list) -> bool:
return found
def _strip_non_ascii(text: str) -> str:
"""Remove non-ASCII characters, replacing with closest ASCII equivalent or removing.
Used as a last resort when the system encoding is ASCII and can't handle
any non-ASCII characters (e.g. LANG=C on Chromebooks).
"""
return text.encode('ascii', errors='ignore').decode('ascii')
def _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages: list) -> bool:
"""Strip non-ASCII characters from all string content in a messages list.
This is a last-resort recovery for systems with ASCII-only encoding
(LANG=C, Chromebooks, minimal containers). Returns True if any
non-ASCII content was found and sanitized.
"""
found = False
for msg in messages:
if not isinstance(msg, dict):
continue
# Sanitize content (string)
content = msg.get("content")
if isinstance(content, str):
sanitized = _strip_non_ascii(content)
if sanitized != content:
msg["content"] = sanitized
found = True
elif isinstance(content, list):
for part in content:
if isinstance(part, dict):
text = part.get("text")
if isinstance(text, str):
sanitized = _strip_non_ascii(text)
if sanitized != text:
part["text"] = sanitized
found = True
# Sanitize name field (can contain non-ASCII in tool results)
name = msg.get("name")
if isinstance(name, str):
sanitized = _strip_non_ascii(name)
if sanitized != name:
msg["name"] = sanitized
found = True
# Sanitize tool_calls
tool_calls = msg.get("tool_calls")
if isinstance(tool_calls, list):
for tc in tool_calls:
if isinstance(tc, dict):
fn = tc.get("function", {})
if isinstance(fn, dict):
fn_args = fn.get("arguments")
if isinstance(fn_args, str):
sanitized = _strip_non_ascii(fn_args)
if sanitized != fn_args:
fn["arguments"] = sanitized
found = True
return found
def _strip_budget_warnings_from_history(messages: list) -> None:
"""Remove budget pressure warnings from tool-result messages in-place.
@ -7183,7 +7242,7 @@ class AIAgent:
self._thinking_prefill_retries = 0
self._last_content_with_tools = None
self._mute_post_response = False
self._surrogate_sanitized = False
self._unicode_sanitized = False
# Pre-turn connection health check: detect and clean up dead TCP
# connections left over from provider outages or dropped streams.
@ -8168,21 +8227,36 @@ class AIAgent:
self.thinking_callback("")
# -----------------------------------------------------------
# Surrogate character recovery. UnicodeEncodeError happens
# when the messages contain lone surrogates (U+D800..U+DFFF)
# that are invalid UTF-8. Common source: clipboard paste
# from Google Docs or similar rich-text editors. We sanitize
# the entire messages list in-place and retry once.
# UnicodeEncodeError recovery. Two common causes:
# 1. Lone surrogates (U+D800..U+DFFF) from clipboard paste
# (Google Docs, rich-text editors) — sanitize and retry.
# 2. ASCII codec on systems with LANG=C or non-UTF-8 locale
# (e.g. Chromebooks) — any non-ASCII character fails.
# Detect via the error message mentioning 'ascii' codec.
# We sanitize messages in-place and retry once.
# -----------------------------------------------------------
if isinstance(api_error, UnicodeEncodeError) and not getattr(self, '_surrogate_sanitized', False):
self._surrogate_sanitized = True
if _sanitize_messages_surrogates(messages):
if isinstance(api_error, UnicodeEncodeError) and not getattr(self, '_unicode_sanitized', False):
self._unicode_sanitized = True
_err_str = str(api_error).lower()
_is_ascii_codec = "'ascii'" in _err_str or "ascii" in _err_str
_surrogates_found = _sanitize_messages_surrogates(messages)
if _surrogates_found:
self._vprint(
f"{self.log_prefix}⚠️ Stripped invalid surrogate characters from messages. Retrying...",
force=True,
)
continue
# Surrogates weren't in messages — might be in system
if _is_ascii_codec:
# ASCII codec: the system encoding can't handle
# non-ASCII characters at all. Sanitize all
# non-ASCII content from messages and retry.
if _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages):
self._vprint(
f"{self.log_prefix}⚠️ System encoding is ASCII — stripped non-ASCII characters from messages. Retrying...",
force=True,
)
continue
# Nothing to sanitize in messages — might be in system
# prompt or prefill. Fall through to normal error path.
status_code = getattr(api_error, "status_code", None)

View file

@ -0,0 +1,120 @@
"""Tests for UnicodeEncodeError recovery with ASCII codec.
Covers the fix for issue #6843 — systems with ASCII locale (LANG=C)
that can't encode non-ASCII characters in API request payloads.
"""
import pytest
from run_agent import (
_strip_non_ascii,
_sanitize_messages_non_ascii,
_sanitize_messages_surrogates,
)
class TestStripNonAscii:
"""Tests for _strip_non_ascii helper."""
def test_ascii_only(self):
assert _strip_non_ascii("hello world") == "hello world"
def test_removes_non_ascii(self):
assert _strip_non_ascii("hello ⚕ world") == "hello world"
def test_removes_emoji(self):
assert _strip_non_ascii("test 🤖 done") == "test done"
def test_chinese_chars(self):
assert _strip_non_ascii("你好world") == "world"
def test_empty_string(self):
assert _strip_non_ascii("") == ""
def test_only_non_ascii(self):
assert _strip_non_ascii("⚕🤖") == ""
class TestSanitizeMessagesNonAscii:
"""Tests for _sanitize_messages_non_ascii."""
def test_no_change_ascii_only(self):
messages = [{"role": "user", "content": "hello"}]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is False
assert messages[0]["content"] == "hello"
def test_sanitizes_content_string(self):
messages = [{"role": "user", "content": "hello ⚕ world"}]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is True
assert messages[0]["content"] == "hello world"
def test_sanitizes_content_list(self):
messages = [{
"role": "user",
"content": [{"type": "text", "text": "hello 🤖"}]
}]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is True
assert messages[0]["content"][0]["text"] == "hello "
def test_sanitizes_name_field(self):
messages = [{"role": "tool", "name": "⚕tool", "content": "ok"}]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is True
assert messages[0]["name"] == "tool"
def test_sanitizes_tool_calls(self):
messages = [{
"role": "assistant",
"content": None,
"tool_calls": [{
"id": "call_1",
"type": "function",
"function": {
"name": "read_file",
"arguments": '{"path": "⚕test.txt"}'
}
}]
}]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is True
assert messages[0]["tool_calls"][0]["function"]["arguments"] == '{"path": "test.txt"}'
def test_handles_non_dict_messages(self):
messages = ["not a dict", {"role": "user", "content": "hello"}]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is False
def test_empty_messages(self):
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii([]) is False
def test_multiple_messages(self):
messages = [
{"role": "system", "content": "⚕ System prompt"},
{"role": "user", "content": "Hello 你好"},
{"role": "assistant", "content": "Hi there!"},
]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is True
assert messages[0]["content"] == " System prompt"
assert messages[1]["content"] == "Hello "
assert messages[2]["content"] == "Hi there!"
class TestSurrogateVsAsciiSanitization:
"""Test that surrogate and ASCII sanitization work independently."""
def test_surrogates_still_handled(self):
"""Surrogates are caught by _sanitize_messages_surrogates, not _non_ascii."""
msg_with_surrogate = "test \ud800 end"
messages = [{"role": "user", "content": msg_with_surrogate}]
assert _sanitize_messages_surrogates(messages) is True
assert "\ud800" not in messages[0]["content"]
assert "\ufffd" in messages[0]["content"]
def test_ascii_codec_strips_all_non_ascii(self):
"""ASCII codec case: all non-ASCII is stripped, not replaced."""
messages = [{"role": "user", "content": "test ⚕🤖你好 end"}]
assert _sanitize_messages_non_ascii(messages) is True
# All non-ASCII chars removed; spaces around them collapse
assert messages[0]["content"] == "test end"
def test_no_surrogates_returns_false(self):
"""When no surrogates present, _sanitize_messages_surrogates returns False."""
messages = [{"role": "user", "content": "hello ⚕ world"}]
assert _sanitize_messages_surrogates(messages) is False