[Solved] UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xa5 in position 0: invalid start byte

Hello Guys, How are you all? Hope You all Are Fine. Today I am facing following error: UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xa5 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: ‘utf8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xa5 in position 0: invalid start byte Error Occurs ?

I am facing following error.

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xa5 in position 0: invalid start byte

How To Solve UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xa5 in position 0: invalid start byte Error ?

Solution 1: Use encoding

You Just need to add encoding. For Example:

import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_csv(your_file_path, encoding= 'unicode_escape')

Now, Your error must be solved.

Solution 2: Use encode

Try to use encode() with utf-8.

a.encode('utf-8')

Now, Your error will be solved.

Solution 3: Use This

f = open("file.txt", "rb")
text = f.read().decode(errors='replace')

Solution 4: Try this Code

Try this snippet.

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

Solution 5: Set default encoder

Just Set default encoder at top of your file.

import sys
reload(sys)
sys.setdefaultencoding("ISO-8859-1")

Solution 6: Use engine

import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_csv('file_name.csv', engine='python')

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?

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