Invalid utf8 input detected on Smalltalk condenseChanges

Question

My changes file has grown to a considerably large sum and im in need to condense it so as to continue smoothly. (Smalltalk condenseChanges) But when i do this i am getting an error "Invalid utf8 input detected". What should i do? I did not find adequate solution upon googling. Any suggestion is much appreciated.

Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

This is an old bug with many reports For example: see http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=830#c2

Check if StandardFileStream is still in use in your image, specifically in the condenseChanges phase. If yes replace it with FileStream (or MultiByteFileStream, I don't remember), retry a condenseChanges (I hope you saved a working copy of the image/changes pair) and see if it fixes the problem.

Normally, this should have been fixed in recent versions of Pharo, but since there are so many reports of the same bug, I did not took time to dig into the new bugtracker, nor into current development branch.

Answer 2

Simply don't use #condenseChanges. As Uko says, save your code, get a fresh image and load your code there. Unless you are doing something special there are more reasons to use a fresh image every once in a while than not (I use a new image every couple of days).