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[Solved] UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte

Hello Guys, How are you all? Hope You all Are Fine. Today I am just trying to open my file and read file but I am facing following error UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte in python. So Here I am Explain to you all the possible solutions here.

Without wasting your time, Let’s start This Article to Solve This Error.

How UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte Error Occurs ?

I am just trying to open my file and read file but I am facing following error.

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

How To Solve UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte Error ?

  1. How To Solve UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte Error ?

    To Solve UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte Error First of all you need to use with open and then try to read file. For example. with open(path, ‘rb’) as f: contents = f.read() OR Just add encoding and use errors. Just like this with open(path, encoding=”utf8″, errors=’ignore’) as f. OR Just Use encoding format ISO-8859-1.

  2. UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte

    To Solve UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte Error First of all you need to use with open and then try to read file. For example. with open(path, ‘rb’) as f: contents = f.read() OR Just add encoding and use errors. Just like this with open(path, encoding=”utf8″, errors=’ignore’) as f. OR Just Use encoding format ISO-8859-1.

Solution 1: Read file as given below

First of all you need to use with open and then try to read file. For example.

with open(path, 'rb') as f:
  contents = f.read()

Solution 2: Use encoding and errors

Just add encoding and use errors. Just like this.

with open(path, encoding="utf8", errors='ignore') as f:

Solution 3: Use encoding format ISO-8859-1

Just Use encoding format ISO-8859-1.

Solution 4: use UTF-16 to decode

with open(your_file_path,'rb') as f:
    contents = f.read()
    contents = contents.decode("utf-16")

Summary

It’s all About this issue. Hope all solution helped you a lot. Comment below Your thoughts and your queries. Also, Comment below which solution worked for you?

Also, Read

3 thoughts on “[Solved] UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte”

  1. Hi there. Many thanks for the effort! Due to the differences in Slovak alphabet was utf-8 “not sufficient”. Therefore, encoding = “utf-16” did a work 🙂

    Reply

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