mystery encoding problem sending email

[Scott Ribe]

How in the !@#$% can this function:

def sendMsg(msg, today, cancel)

email = <<MSG
Date: #{Time.now}
From: f...@bar.com
Subject: Pediatric Cardiology Apt#{cancel ? ' Cancellation' : ''}
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8";
X-Priority: #{today ? '1' : '3'}

#{msg.encode('US-ASCII', {undef: :replace, invalid: :replace})}
MSG

Net::SMTP.start("foo-...@bar.org", 25) do |smtp|
smtp.send_mail(email, MAILUSER, ["some...@bar.org"])
end

end

intermittently produce this error:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:325:in `slice!': invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII (ArgumentError)
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:325:in `block in each_crlf_line'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:336:in `block in buffer_filling'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:334:in `step'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:334:in `buffer_filling'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:324:in `each_crlf_line'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:269:in `write_message_0'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:284:in `block (2 levels) in write_message'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:313:in `using_each_crlf_line'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:283:in `block in write_message'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:202:in `writing'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:282:in `write_message'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/smtp.rb:899:in `block in data'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/smtp.rb:942:in `critical'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/smtp.rb:896:in `data'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/smtp.rb:663:in `block in send_message'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/smtp.rb:852:in `rcptto_list'
from /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/smtp.rb:663:in `send_message'
from /pedcard/scripts/SoarianReport.rb:24:in `block in sendMsg'
...

This is on OS X, and it only happens when run automatically from a launch daemon. Logging into the same account and running it manually always works. So it's some version or configuration issue. But I find that using rvm on OS X is frustrating to say the least...

Any clue as to where this bug comes from? Ruby update needed? Some gem or other? What version?

--
Scott Ribe
scott...@elevated-dev.com
http://www.elevated-dev.com/
(303) 722-0567 voice

[Jim]

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 10:07:01 AM UTC-5, Scott Ribe wrote:

How in the !@#$% can this function:

def sendMsg(msg, today, cancel)
 
email = <<MSG
Date: #{Time.now}
From: f...@bar.com
Subject: Pediatric Cardiology Apt#{cancel ? ' Cancellation' : ''}
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8";
X-Priority: #{today ? '1' : '3'}

#{msg.encode('US-ASCII', {undef: :replace, invalid: :replace})}
MSG

  Net::SMTP.start("foo-...@bar.org", 25) do |smtp|
    smtp.send_mail(email, MAILUSER, ["some...@bar.org"])
  end

end

intermittently produce this error:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:325:in `slice!': invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII (ArgumentError)

[snip stack trace]

It's curious that you are setting the message encoding to UTF-8 and then encoding the message in US-ASCII, but it's been a long time since I've used Net::SMTP directly.  Glancing through the stack trace, it appears it may be puking when trying to encode the rcpt address, not necessarily the message itself, but to find out more would require a bit of digging in the Net::SMTP gem code.  

This is on OS X, and it only happens when run automatically from a launch daemon. Logging into the same account and running it manually always works. So it's some version or configuration issue. But I find that using rvm on OS X is frustrating to say the least... 

I can't imagine *not* using RVM anymore, and the primary unix I've worked with for some years is Mac OS X.   A bit of googling has always helped me fix or work around any issues I might have had.   Having the same Ruby environment in production as development is very helpful.

Also, I would guess the email is being sent from a rake task?  Any particular reason to use a launch daemon instead of cron?

Jim Crate