# Bad Request "corruption"

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [August 17, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534 "2010-08-17T16:31:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 15\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/1 "2010-08-17T16:31:41Z")

</div>

Hi,  
I have been using chef-client on Windows for the last few weeks. At  
some point, the client simply stops working properly. I _think_ it’s  
couchdb related.

The stack trace on the client side looks like:  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:07:20 -0700] WARN: HTTP Request Returned 500  
Internal Server Error: 400 "Bad Request"  
C:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2101:in `error!': 500 "Internal Server Error " (Net::HTTPFatalError) from C:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.8/bin/../lib/chef/rest.r b:229:in`api\_request’  
…

On the server with debug enabled, I see:  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Signatures match? : ‘true’  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Request time difference:  
1.149902, within 900 seconds? : true  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Expected content hash is:  
‘8C9sV3ubH2xoJ1cEq6/xwnPrL5o=’  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Request Content Hash is:  
‘8C9sV3ubH2xoJ1cEq6/xwnPrL5o=’  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Hashes match?: true  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via GET  
to localhost:5984/chef/\_design/id\_map/\_view/name\_to\_id  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via GET  
to localhost:5984/chef/\_design/id\_map/\_view/name\_to\_id  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via PUT  
to localhost:5984/chef/a1773816-65ab-4026-a342-112ef9438106  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:30 +0000] WARN: HTTP Request Returned 400 Bad  
Request: bad\_request

I can’t come up with a set of reproducible steps. It just seems to  
"happen" suddenly. That document\_id corresponds to the Node obviously,  
but I am not sure how to get more information from Couch?

I would appreciate thoughts on how I can debug this further and try to  
figure out what’s going on. This is a total show stopper for me since  
I can’t figure out how to prevent or fix short of deleting the node  
and readding it.

Help!

Thanks,  
Landon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Seth\_Falcon2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/seth_falcon2/32/877_2.png) [@Seth\_Falcon2](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Seth_Falcon2)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/2 "2010-08-17T18:26:25Z")

</div>

Hi Landon,

A couple of ideas below...

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 9:31 AM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:

> The stack trace on the client side looks like:  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:07:20 -0700] WARN: HTTP Request Returned 500  
> Internal Server Error: 400 "Bad Request"  
> C:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2101:in `error!': 500 "Internal Server Error " (Net::HTTPFatalError) from C:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.8/bin/../lib/chef/rest.r b:229:in `api\_request'  
> .....

Once this starts happening, does it continue to occur for subsequent  
chef-client runs?

> On the server with debug enabled, I see:  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Signatures match? : 'true'  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Request time difference:  
> 1.149902, within 900 seconds? : true  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Expected content hash is:  
> '8C9sV3ubH2xoJ1cEq6/xwnPrL5o='  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Request Content Hash is:  
> '8C9sV3ubH2xoJ1cEq6/xwnPrL5o='  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Hashes match?: true  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via GET  
> to localhost:5984/chef/\_design/id\_map/\_view/name\_to\_id  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via GET  
> to localhost:5984/chef/\_design/id\_map/\_view/name\_to\_id  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via PUT  
> to localhost:5984/chef/a1773816-65ab-4026-a342-112ef9438106  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:30 +0000] WARN: HTTP Request Returned 400 Bad  
> Request: bad\_request
> 
> I can't come up with a set of reproducible steps. It just seems to  
> "happen" suddenly. That document\_id corresponds to the Node obviously,  
> but I am not sure how to get more information from Couch?
> 
> I would appreciate thoughts on how I can debug this further and try to  
> figure out what's going on. This is a total show stopper for me since  
> I can't figure out how to prevent or fix short of deleting the node  
> and readding it.

Is there anything of interest in the couchdb log file? One thing you  
could try to get more info from couchdb is to turn on debug logging  
([http://localhost:5984/\_utils/config.html](http://localhost:5984/_utils/config.html) look for the log section).

- seth

--  
Seth Falcon | @sfalcon | [http://userprimary.net/](http://userprimary.net/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/3 "2010-08-17T19:17:49Z")

</div>

Yes, it happens during every run. I will have to check the log. I  
will turn on teh debug logging and send what I see.

Thanks,  
Landon

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Seth Falcon [seth@userprimary.net](mailto:seth@userprimary.net) wrote:

> Hi Landon,
> 
> A couple of ideas below...
> 
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 9:31 AM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:
> 
> > The stack trace on the client side looks like:  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:07:20 -0700] WARN: HTTP Request Returned 500  
> > Internal Server Error: 400 "Bad Request"  
> > C:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2101:in `error!': 500 "Internal Server Error " (Net::HTTPFatalError) from C:/Ruby187/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/chef-0.9.8/bin/../lib/chef/rest.r b:229:in `api\_request'  
> > .....
> 
> Once this starts happening, does it continue to occur for subsequent  
> chef-client runs?
> 
> > On the server with debug enabled, I see:  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Signatures match? : 'true'  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Request time difference:  
> > 1.149902, within 900 seconds? : true  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Expected content hash is:  
> > '8C9sV3ubH2xoJ1cEq6/xwnPrL5o='  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Request Content Hash is:  
> > '8C9sV3ubH2xoJ1cEq6/xwnPrL5o='  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Hashes match?: true  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via GET  
> > to localhost:5984/chef/\_design/id\_map/\_view/name\_to\_id  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via GET  
> > to localhost:5984/chef/\_design/id\_map/\_view/name\_to\_id  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:29 +0000] DEBUG: Sending HTTP Request via PUT  
> > to localhost:5984/chef/a1773816-65ab-4026-a342-112ef9438106  
> > [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:30 +0000] WARN: HTTP Request Returned 400 Bad  
> > Request: bad\_request
> > 
> > I can't come up with a set of reproducible steps. It just seems to  
> > "happen" suddenly. That document\_id corresponds to the Node obviously,  
> > but I am not sure how to get more information from Couch?
> > 
> > I would appreciate thoughts on how I can debug this further and try to  
> > figure out what's going on. This is a total show stopper for me since  
> > I can't figure out how to prevent or fix short of deleting the node  
> > and readding it.
> 
> Is there anything of interest in the couchdb log file? One thing you  
> could try to get more info from couchdb is to turn on debug logging  
> ([http://localhost:5984/\_utils/config.html](http://localhost:5984/_utils/config.html) look for the log section).
> 
> - seth
> 
> --  
> Seth Falcon | @sfalcon | [http://userprimary.net/](http://userprimary.net/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Seth\_Falcon2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/seth_falcon2/32/877_2.png) [@Seth\_Falcon2](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Seth_Falcon2)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/4 "2010-08-17T21:40:40Z")

</div>

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:

> Yes, it happens during every run. I will have to check the log. I  
> will turn on teh debug logging and send what I see.

Another thing you could explore is capturing the HTTP request that is  
erroring out using ngrep (or other packet sniffer tool). If we could  
see what is getting sent, we might be able to determine where things  
are going astray. If you pursue this route, you could capture the  
communication between chef-server and couchdb as well as between the  
client and chef-server.

- seth

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/5 "2010-08-17T22:31:03Z")

</div>

Hi Seth,  
First of all, thanks for helping with this. There seems to be a  
couple of things going on:  
I find the error message in the couch log. The start looks like this:  
[Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:30 GMT] [error] [\<0.24065.13\>] attempted  
upload of invalid JSON

The invalid JSON is 200KB large!! Is this normal? It appears that  
OHAI on windows is posting LARGE amounts of data. I have attached the  
whole error line here but it seems like there is something broken if  
OHAI is posting this much data, right?

The other strange thing is a few hours later the server started  
rejecting the Client key so I had to delete. now the Client Node  
connects fine, but this is a ticking time bomb I feel.

Please tell me I am not crazy??

Thanks,  
Landon

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Seth Falcon [seth@userprimary.net](mailto:seth@userprimary.net) wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:
> 
> > Yes, it happens during every run. I will have to check the log. I  
> > will turn on teh debug logging and send what I see.
> 
> Another thing you could explore is capturing the HTTP request that is  
> erroring out using ngrep (or other packet sniffer tool). If we could  
> see what is getting sent, we might be able to determine where things  
> are going astray. If you pursue this route, you could capture the  
> communication between chef-server and couchdb as well as between the  
> client and chef-server.
> 
> - seth

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/6 "2010-08-17T23:01:25Z")

</div>

A couple of more points:

My version of CouchDB is 0.10.0, the default in Ubuntu 10.4 it  
appears. Is anyone else having issues with this version of CouchDB?

The JSON that I posted, though large, does appear to be valid  
according to JSON lint...

Again, appreciate all thoughts.

Landon

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:

> Hi Seth,  
> First of all, thanks for helping with this. There seems to be a  
> couple of things going on:  
> I find the error message in the couch log. The start looks like this:  
> [Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:14:30 GMT] [error] [\<0.24065.13\>] attempted  
> upload of invalid JSON
> 
> The invalid JSON is 200KB large!! Is this normal? It appears that  
> OHAI on windows is posting LARGE amounts of data. I have attached the  
> whole error line here but it seems like there is something broken if  
> OHAI is posting this much data, right?
> 
> The other strange thing is a few hours later the server started  
> rejecting the Client key so I had to delete. now the Client Node  
> connects fine, but this is a ticking time bomb I feel.
> 
> Please tell me I am not crazy??
> 
> Thanks,  
> Landon
> 
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Seth Falcon [seth@userprimary.net](mailto:seth@userprimary.net) wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:
> > 
> > > Yes, it happens during every run. I will have to check the log. I  
> > > will turn on teh debug logging and send what I see.
> > 
> > Another thing you could explore is capturing the HTTP request that is  
> > erroring out using ngrep (or other packet sniffer tool). If we could  
> > see what is getting sent, we might be able to determine where things  
> > are going astray. If you pursue this route, you could capture the  
> > communication between chef-server and couchdb as well as between the  
> > client and chef-server.
> > 
> > - seth

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kallistec](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/kallistec/32/23_2.png) [@kallistec](https://discourse.chef.io/u/kallistec)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2010, 11:32pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/7 "2010-08-17T23:32:51Z")

</div>

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:

> A couple of more points:
> 
> My version of CouchDB is 0.10.0, the default in Ubuntu 10.4 it  
> appears. Is anyone else having issues with this version of CouchDB?

I haven't seen this problem before.

> > The invalid JSON is 200KB large!! Is this normal? It appears that  
> > OHAI on windows is posting LARGE amounts of data. I have attached the  
> > whole error line here but it seems like there is something broken if  
> > OHAI is posting this much data, right?

The general philosophy with ohai is to collect as much info as  
possible, since disk is cheap and by the time you know you need it, it  
could be too late. That said, you can opt out to any plugins you don't  
want by including something like the following in your client.rb:

Ohai::Config[:disabled\_plugins] \<\< 'darwin::system\_profiler' \<\<  
'darwin::kernel' \<\< 'darwin::ssh\_host\_key'

HTH,  
Dan DeLeo

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/8 "2010-08-18T01:10:02Z")

</div>

> > My version of CouchDB is 0.10.0, the default in Ubuntu 10.4 it  
> > appears. Is anyone else having issues with this version of CouchDB?
> 
> I haven't seen this problem before.

Hmmm. I was afraid that was going to be the general consensus. I am  
loathe to upgrade CouchDB since I am guessing most people run Chef  
just fine on 0.10.0...

> > > The invalid JSON is 200KB large!! Is this normal? It appears that  
> > > OHAI on windows is posting LARGE amounts of data. I have attached the  
> > > whole error line here but it seems like there is something broken if  
> > > OHAI is posting this much data, right?
> 
> The general philosophy with ohai is to collect as much info as  
> possible, since disk is cheap and by the time you know you need it, it  
> could be too late. That said, you can opt out to any plugins you don't  
> want by including something like the following in your client.rb:
> 
> Ohai::Config[:disabled\_plugins] \<\< 'darwin::system\_profiler' \<\<  
> 'darwin::kernel' \<\< 'darwin::ssh\_host\_key'
> 
> HTH,  
> Dan DeLeo

That does help. Good to know. I see your point on cheap disk, etc.  
And the obvious point is that the request has been large during the  
entire development cycle and didn't bomb earlier. Like I said before,  
I am concerned that we are trying to roll out an infrastructure using  
Chef but I feel like there is a time-bomb somewhere in the stack  
waiting to go off and I can't find the right wire to cut (ok I took  
that metaphor too far...)

Thanks to both of you for the help. Really appreciated.

Landon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Seth\_Falcon2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/seth_falcon2/32/877_2.png) [@Seth\_Falcon2](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Seth_Falcon2)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/9 "2010-08-18T04:46:51Z")

</div>

On 8/17/10 6:10 PM, Landon wrote:

> > > My version of CouchDB is 0.10.0, the default in Ubuntu 10.4 it  
> > > appears. Is anyone else having issues with this version of CouchDB?
> > 
> > I haven't seen this problem before.
> 
> Hmmm. I was afraid that was going to be the general consensus. I am  
> loathe to upgrade CouchDB since I am guessing most people run Chef  
> just fine on 0.10.0...

One thing you might try is to create a test database in couchdb and try  
putting the node data JSON into a document to see if you can reproduce  
the error.

Using the latest couchdb I was not able to repro the error with these steps:

# start couchdb in a terminal

couchdb

# in another terminal

curl -X PUT [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test)  
curl -X PUT -H "content-type: application/json"   
[http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc) -d @badjson.json  
curl [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc)

- seth

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Seth\_Falcon2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/seth_falcon2/32/877_2.png) [@Seth\_Falcon2](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Seth_Falcon2)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/10 "2010-08-18T04:53:48Z")

</div>

One other thought:

Can you grab the last successfully saved node JSON from couchdb and  
compare with the JSON that fails? That might shed some light (or rule  
something out) as well.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/11 "2010-08-19T21:15:05Z")

</div>

Seth,  
That's a great idea! Thanks. I tested the JSON with a fresh .10  
install and an error was thrown so I have much higher hopes that  
upgrading Couch will make this go away! Thanks for the help. I  
really do appreciate it.

Landon

> One thing you might try is to create a test database in couchdb and try  
> putting the node data JSON into a document to see if you can reproduce  
> the error.
> 
> Using the latest couchdb I was not able to repro the error with these steps:
> 
> # start couchdb in a terminal
> 
> couchdb
> 
> # in another terminal
> 
> curl -X PUT [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test)  
> curl -X PUT -H "content-type: application/json"   
> [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc) -d @badjson.json  
> curl [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc)
> 
> - seth

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/12 "2010-08-19T22:46:25Z")

</div>

Seth,  
Just wanted to be clear. You were able to upload the JSON I sent into  
the latest version of CouchDB? I installed the latest version on my  
development machine (OSX 10.6.4) using brew and I get the same error  
that I get on .10.0 on Ubuntu 10.4-  
{"error":"bad\_request","reason":"invalid UTF-8 JSON"}

Thanks,  
landon

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 2:15 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:

> Seth,  
> That's a great idea! Thanks. I tested the JSON with a fresh .10  
> install and an error was thrown so I have much higher hopes that  
> upgrading Couch will make this go away! Thanks for the help. I  
> really do appreciate it.
> 
> Landon
> 
> > One thing you might try is to create a test database in couchdb and try  
> > putting the node data JSON into a document to see if you can reproduce  
> > the error.
> > 
> > Using the latest couchdb I was not able to repro the error with these steps:
> > 
> > # start couchdb in a terminal
> > 
> > couchdb
> > 
> > # in another terminal
> > 
> > curl -X PUT [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test)  
> > curl -X PUT -H "content-type: application/json"   
> > [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc) -d @badjson.json  
> > curl [http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc](http://127.0.0.1:5984/test/doc)
> > 
> > - seth

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Seth\_Falcon2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/seth_falcon2/32/877_2.png) [@Seth\_Falcon2](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Seth_Falcon2)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/13 "2010-08-19T23:21:55Z")

</div>

Hi Landon,

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:

> Seth,  
> Just wanted to be clear. You were able to upload the JSON I sent into  
> the latest version of CouchDB? I installed the latest version on my  
> development machine (OSX 10.6.4) using brew and I get the same error  
> that I get on .10.0 on Ubuntu 10.4-  
> {"error":"bad\_request","reason":"invalid UTF-8 JSON"}

Yes, I took the JSON you sent to the list and was able to do a PUT to  
a local couchdb instance at the command line using curl. This was on  
OS X.

I wonder if this is somehow a locale issue? I have:

echo $LANG  
en\_US.utf-8

- seth

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**Author:** ![kallistec](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/kallistec/32/23_2.png) [@kallistec](https://discourse.chef.io/u/kallistec)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/14 "2010-08-19T23:22:59Z")

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On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Landon [chef@lclark.net](mailto:chef@lclark.net) wrote:

> Seth,  
> Just wanted to be clear. You were able to upload the JSON I sent into  
> the latest version of CouchDB? I installed the latest version on my  
> development machine (OSX 10.6.4) using brew and I get the same error  
> that I get on .10.0 on Ubuntu 10.4-  
> {"error":"bad\_request","reason":"invalid UTF-8 JSON"}
> 
> Thanks,  
> landon

I looked at the attached JSON ran it through iconv to see if it had  
invalid UTF-8 characters, and I think it does. In my terminal, which  
is set to UTF-8, I see stuff like this:

(from Landon Clark\<92\>s )

If I run it through iconv and specify an input encoding ISO-8859-1  
then iconv doesn't report any errors. I know we've dealt with encoding  
problems in windows on ohai before, but I wasn't involved so I don't  
know what was done about it. I'll ask around.

Dan DeLeo

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**Author:** ![Landon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Landon)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/bad-request-corruption/1534/15 "2010-08-20T18:29:02Z")

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> I looked at the attached JSON ran it through iconv to see if it had  
> invalid UTF-8 characters, and I think it does. In my terminal, which  
> is set to UTF-8, I see stuff like this:
> 
> (from Landon Clark\<92\>s )
> 
> If I run it through iconv and specify an input encoding ISO-8859-1  
> then iconv doesn't report any errors. I know we've dealt with encoding  
> problems in windows on ohai before, but I wasn't involved so I don't  
> know what was done about it. I'll ask around.  
> Thanks Dan. I appreciate anything you can find! This has been a real  
> thorn in our side.

Landon