UnicodeEncodeError raised when 'createsuperuser' is called

Question

I am trying to deploy my Django application (2.1.5 with Python 3.6.6) on my server with a PostGreSQL database. I did a 'makemigrations' and 'migrate' as usual and then I can't create a super user with the command 'createsuperuser':

[alex@web574 myproject]$ python3.6 manage.py createsuperuser
Nom d'utilisateur (leave blank to use 'alex'): 
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "manage.py", line 15, in <module>
 execute_from_command_line(sys.argv)
 File "/home/alex/webapps/global_hse_project/lib/python3.6/Django-2.1.5-py3.6.egg/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 381, in execute_from_command_line
 utility.execute()
 File "/home/alex/webapps/global_hse_project/lib/python3.6/Django-2.1.5-py3.6.egg/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 375, in execute
 self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
 File "/home/alex/webapps/global_hse_project/lib/python3.6/Django-2.1.5-py3.6.egg/django/core/management/base.py", line 316, in run_from_argv
 self.execute(*args, **cmd_options)
 File "/home/alex/webapps/global_hse_project/lib/python3.6/Django-2.1.5-py3.6.egg/django/contrib/auth/management/commands/createsuperuser.py", line 60, in execute
 return super().execute(*args, **options)
 File "/home/alex/webapps/global_hse_project/lib/python3.6/Django-2.1.5-py3.6.egg/django/core/management/base.py", line 353, in execute
 output = self.handle(*args, **options)
 File "/home/alex/webapps/global_hse_project/lib/python3.6/Django-2.1.5-py3.6.egg/django/contrib/auth/management/commands/createsuperuser.py", line 139, in handle
 input_value = self.get_input_data(field, message)
 File "/home/alex/webapps/global_hse_project/lib/python3.6/Django-2.1.5-py3.6.egg/django/contrib/auth/management/commands/createsuperuser.py", line 194, in get_input_data
 raw_value = input(message)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character '\xe9' in position 8: ordinal not in range(128)

I found on Google to add:

# -*- Coding: utf-8 -*-

at the top of the file but it doesn't work, same result with the variable DEFAULT_CHARSET (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#std:setting-DEFAULT_CHARSET). My PostGreSQL database are asking for utf-8 encoding.

• Kevin Christopher Henry: This probably has to do with the encoding used by your terminal and / or Python. Search for "UnicodeEncodeError terminal" and see if anything there helps you.
• Will Keeling: In your shell, try setting the PYTHONIOENCODING environment variable before running the createsuperuser command. So run: export PYTHONIOENCODING="UTF-8"; python3.6 manage.py createsuperuser
• Rekoc: @WillKeeling, you right ! It was due to the env var PYTHONIOENCODING.
• Will Keeling: @Rekoc - great, will add an answer.

Answer 1

This may be caused by the fact that encoding used for the stdin does not support the characters being typed in at the input() prompt.

You can try explicitly setting the encoding to UTF-8 using the PYTHONIOENCODING environment variable before you run the createsuperuser command:

export PYTHONIOENCODING="UTF-8"; python3.6 manage.py createsuperuser

Answer 2

I think it is the same problem as here: previous post You have to add

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

in the start of each file to include the right encoding