utf 8 - Python: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x80 in position 0: invalid start byte

Question

I am fetching data from a catalog and it's giving data in bytes format.

Bytes data:

b'x80x00x00x00
x00x00%x83xa0x08x01x00xbb@x00x00x05p 
x02x00>xf3x00x00x00}x02x00`x03xef0x00x00
xc0 
x06xf0>xf3x00x00x02x88x02x03xecx03xef0x00x00/.....'

While converting this data in string or any readable format I'am getting this error:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x80 in position 0: invalid start byte

Code which I used(Python 3.7.3):

blobs = blob.decode('utf-8')

AND

import json
json.dumps(blob.decode())

I've also used pickle, ast and pprint but they are not helpful here.

What I tried:

• UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xa5 in position 0: invalid start byte
• error UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte
• Python 3 CSV file giving UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte error when I print 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x80
• UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x80 in position 3131: invalid start byte
• https://www.edureka.co/community/52722/unicodedecodeerror-codec-decode-position-invalid-start-byte

Answer 1

You can try ignoring the non-readable blocks.

blobs.decode('utf-8', 'ignore')

It's not a great solution but the way you're generating the byte object has some issues. Maybe, utf-8 is not the proper encoding for your data.