How to debug “ERROR! Unexpected Exception: Non-hexadecimal digit found” in Ansible and Vagrant?

Question

I am facing a problem trying to run Vagrant with Ansible. Here is the error that I'm getting when I'm trying to run vagrant up or vagrant provision in terminal (git bash) on Windows 7:

ERROR! Unexpected Exception: Non-hexadecimal digit found
to see the full traceback, use -vvv
Ansible failed to complete successfully. Any error output should be
visible above. Please fix these errors and try again.

It happens because the Ansible-vault file .vault_pass is not hexadecimal (it is a string and it can't be changed). On computers of my coleagues it works normally, but on mine it doesn't.

The problematic string in .vault_pass file looks like DBAKWeG3KOr3jKjBDbAz.

I guess that the problem is something with Python, but I'm not sure and I don't know how to fix it.

When I try to add -vvv this is the resoult:

ERROR! Unexpected Exception: Non-hexadecimal digit found
the full traceback was:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/ansible-playbook", line 92, in 
    exit_code = cli.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/cli/playbook.py", line 132, in run
    inventory = Inventory(loader=loader, variable_manager=variable_manager, host_list=self.options.inventory)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/__init__.py", line 85, in __init__
    self.parse_inventory(host_list)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/__init__.py", line 144, in parse_inventory
    group.vars = combine_vars(group.vars, self.get_group_variables(group.name))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/__init__.py", line 509, in get_group_variables
    self._vars_per_group[groupname] = self._get_group_variables(groupname, vault_password=vault_password)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/__init__.py", line 527, in _get_group_variables
    vars = combine_vars(vars, self.get_group_vars(group))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/__init__.py", line 707, in get_group_vars
    return self._get_hostgroup_vars(host=None, group=group, new_pb_basedir=new_pb_basedir)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/inventory/__init__.py", line 746, in _get_hostgroup_vars
    results = combine_vars(results, self._variable_manager.add_group_vars_file(base_path, self._loader))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/vars/__init__.py", line 578, in add_group_vars_file
    (name, data) = self._load_inventory_file(path, loader)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/vars/__init__.py", line 535, in _load_inventory_file
    _found, results = self._load_inventory_file(path=p, loader=loader)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/vars/__init__.py", line 550, in _load_inventory_file
    data = loader.load_from_file(path)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/parsing/dataloader.py", line 113, in load_from_file
    (file_data, show_content) = self._get_file_contents(file_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/parsing/dataloader.py", line 172, in _get_file_contents
    data = self._vault.decrypt(data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/parsing/vault/__init__.py", line 169, in decrypt
    b_data = this_cipher.decrypt(b_data, self.b_password)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ansible/parsing/vault/__init__.py", line 674, in decrypt
    data = unhexlify(data)
TypeError: Non-hexadecimal digit found
Ansible failed to complete successfully. Any error output should be
visible above. Please fix these errors and try again.

Good question. However, please don't spoil your posts with all-caps material or bold requests for "ASAP" treatment - volunteers will get around to your question at their leisure. Thanks! — halfer
A couple of things to consider: can we see the -vvv output? Also, what computers do your colleagues run where this works? Are you all running the same version of Python and Ansible? — halfer
@halfer, thank you for answer. Right now I am upgrading windows from Win 7 to Win 10, for now it is the only difference between my computer and my colleagues computers. Phyton and Ansible are the same version. I will sned you the -vvv output when I finish installing Windows (in 1-2 hours) — Vladan Grubo Paunovic
OK. I haven't used Vault yet, so my strategy here would be to work out why Ansible believes this must be a hex number. How does the .vault_pass file get created? Is there a Vault tool to encode passwords so they are in hex? — halfer

Nikola Kirincic Nikola Kirincic · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-28T19:38:40

It has to do with Windows line endings at the end of encrypted file. Just switch last line ending to Unix and save the file.

How to debug “ERROR! Unexpected Exception: Non-hexadecimal digit found” in Ansible and Vagrant?

4 Answers