Airbrake throwing error “pybrake - ERROR - strconv

Question

I'm trying to use the Airbrake logger in a Django project following the steps described in https://github.com/airbrake/pybrake#django-integration.

I've configured my LOGGING setting like so:

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'handlers': {
        'airbrake': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'class': 'pybrake.LoggingHandler',
        }
    },
    'loggers': {
        'lucy_web': {
            'handlers': ['airbrake'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        }
    }
}

Then, in a particular file in the lucy_web hierarchy called lucy_web/lib/session_recommendation.py, I have the following test function:

import logging

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

def log_something():
    logger.error("Logging something...")

However, if I try to call this function from the Django shell, pybrake itself logs an error:

strconv.ParseInt: parsing "None": invalid syntax

Here is the full sequence of commands:

(venv) Kurts-MacBook-Pro-2:lucy-web kurtpeek$ python manage.py shell
Python 3.6.4 (v3.6.4:d48ecebad5, Dec 18 2017, 21:07:28) 
Type 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information
IPython 6.3.1 -- An enhanced Interactive Python. Type '?' for help.

In [1]: from lucy_web.lib.session_recommendation import *

In [2]: log_something()

In [3]: 2018-05-30 17:25:32,201 - pybrake - ERROR - strconv.ParseInt: parsing "None": invalid syntax

It would appear from https://golang.org/pkg/strconv/#ParseInt that strconv.ParseInt is actually a built-in function of the Go language, so I don't understand why pybrake, which is a Python package, is throwing this error, or how to debug it. Can anyone explain this error?

Answer 1

It seems airbrake server itself is written in Go.

This can be inferred from the following facts:

• In their "About" page (https://airbrake.io/about) they list one of their members as their "Lead Go developer" and say they've been "using Go since before 1.0". Also in their CTO description they say he likes "hacking his home with Go".

• You are getting a strconv.ParseInt (Go) error from Python

• There is a report of getting also a strconv.ParseInt from using a Ruby client to report airbrake errors (https://github.com/airbrake/airbrake/issues/502)

So explanation for the error would be that the Python client is getting this error from the server when sending the report, and logging this.

As for how to debug this, I'd say the best way would be to capture the request that the client is sending to the server.

You can do this for example by modifying the code here to point to your own server instead of airbrake's and log the requests:

https://github.com/airbrake/pybrake/blob/master/pybrake/notifier.py#L41

Or capture the HTTP traffic somehow.

You'll probably see a JSON/XML/HTTP Form Data in which there will be a "None" value attached to a property that should instead be a number, which would then raise this error server-side.