Cairn

Non-UTF-8 memory file encoding crash and silent failure

NousResearch/hermes-agent · cluster 10879 · agent

Data as of

Nothing open on GitHub. Fix merged in #71078. Check it covers your case.

The short answer

0open issues
0open PRs
10items grouped
Known?
Yes. 10 related items grouped here, 4 issues already closed.
Fix event
A fix was merged to main in PR #71078. Check it covers your case. No release data is tracked.
Tracker
The maintainers' tracker marks this unresolved. That is separate from the fix event.
Still open
Nothing open on GitHub.

These issues and fixes concern crashes or silent memory loss when MEMORY.md or USER.md contain non-UTF-8 bytes, BOMs, or legacy encodings. Proposed fixes involve graceful degradation, error logging, and tolerant file reading instead of strict UTF-8 decoding.

Open issues0

No open issues.

Open PRs0

No open pull requests.

Fixes on record

Merged to main. A stamp counts the issues a fix is linked to.

  • #71078 fix(windows): retire the bare read_text/write_text class — salvage 11 contributor PRs + sweep + linter

    merged to main

    files: agent/auxiliary_client.py, agent/copilot_acp_client.py, agent/credential_sources.py, agent/nous_rate_guard.py, agent/shell_hooks.py, cli.py, contributors/emails/[redacted:email], contributors/emails/[redacted:email], contributors/emails/[redacted:email], hermes_cli/auth.py, hermes_cli/banner.py, hermes_cli/container_boot.py, hermes_cli/doctor.py, hermes_cli/gateway.py, hermes_cli/main.py, hermes_cli/plugins.py, hermes_cli/profiles.py, hermes_cli/service_manager.py, hermes_cli/uninstall.py, hermes_constants.py (+58 more)

5 PRs closed without merging

From the close comments: done elsewhere 2 · duplicate 1 · partial fix 1 · other 1

  • #10888 fix(memory): handle BOM and non-UTF-8 bytes in memory files · partial fix
  • #49516 fix(memory): handle non-UTF-8 files gracefully instead of crashing · done elsewhere → #26045, #71078
  • #49552 Fix UnicodeDecodeError when reading non-UTF-8 files (fix #49508) · duplicate → #49516, #49508
  • #54044 fix(memory): tolerate non-UTF-8 bytes in USER.md/MEMORY.md reads · done elsewhere → #26045, #71078
  • #57755 fix(memory): log and degrade gracefully on invalid UTF-8 in memory files · other
Closed issues · 4
  • Closed#10879[Bug]: Non-UTF-8 MEMORY.md raises uncaught UnicodeDecodeError — agent starts with empty memory
  • Closed#49508memory_tool.py can crash on non-UTF-8 files during strict UTF-8 read
  • Closed#53833[Bug]: memory tool crashes with UnicodeDecodeError on legacy non-UTF-8 bytes in USER.md/MEMORY.md
  • Closed#57754Encoding corruption in MEMORY.md/USER.md silently disables memory, with no log
How this cluster was grouped
  • Link evidence (partly structural links): some members are connected by structural evidence (shared changed files, or a closing/superseded reference); the rest are joined by an automated relevance judgement over their text.
  • Members outside that structural core may belong to a different underlying problem.
  • Pairwise link density 0.20: the share of item pairs that carry a link, counting a structural link in full and a relevance-only link at 0.36. 1.00 means every pair is linked.

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At a glance

Subsystem
agent
Merged PRs
#71078
Closed issues
4
Attempts
5 PRs closed without merging
Fix link checked
25 Jul 2026

For your agent

The same facts, typed.

cluster/10879.json
cluster/10879.md