Problem description:

After a reboot, the command $ anaconda-navigator will no longer launch the Anaconda Navigator.

Instead the following tracestack is generated:

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/bin/anaconda-navigator", line 11, in <module>

    sys.exit(main())

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/app/main.py", line 99, in main

    from anaconda_navigator.utils.logs import clean_logs

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/utils/logs.py", line 18, in <module>

    from anaconda_navigator.config import (LOG_FILENAME, LOG_FOLDER,

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/__init__.py", line 27, in <module>

    from anaconda_navigator.config.main import CONF

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/main.py", line 67, in <module>

    raw_mode=True,

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/user.py", line 221, in __init__

    self.load_from_ini()

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/user.py", line 279, in load_from_ini

    self.read(self.filename(), encoding='utf-8')

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/configparser.py", line 697, in read

    self._read(fp, filename)

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/configparser.py", line 1015, in _read

    for lineno, line in enumerate(fp, start=1):

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/codecs.py", line 321, in decode

    (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xd6 in position 3: invalid continuation byte

Troubleshooting attempts

First, I have tried:

source ~/anaconda3/bin/activate root

anaconda-navigator

Based on comments at:
https://github.com/ContinuumIO/anaconda-issues/issues/1580

Next, I have tried:

$ anaconda-navigator --reset 

However that results in:

Anaconda Navigator configuration reset...

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/bin/anaconda-navigator", line 11, in <module>

    sys.exit(main())

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/app/main.py", line 75, in main

    from anaconda_navigator.config import CONF_PATH

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/__init__.py", line 27, in <module>

    from anaconda_navigator.config.main import CONF

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/main.py", line 67, in <module>

    raw_mode=True,

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/user.py", line 221, in __init__

    self.load_from_ini()

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/anaconda_navigator/config/user.py", line 279, in load_from_ini

    self.read(self.filename(), encoding='utf-8')

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/configparser.py", line 697, in read

    self._read(fp, filename)

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/configparser.py", line 1015, in _read

    for lineno, line in enumerate(fp, start=1):

  File "/home/penguin/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/codecs.py", line 321, in decode

    (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xd6 in position 3: invalid continuation byte

Troubleshooting

First, try resetting Navigator.

$ anaconda-navigator --reset

The above command should remove corrupted log files at ~/.anaconda, but if this does not work or results in an error, try removing the log files manually.

$ rm -rf /home/$USER/.anaconda

Finally if that doesn't work try:

$ conda install anaconda-clean

$ conda-clean --yes

Reference

@goanpeca and @jeethjoseph's comments at: https://github.com/ContinuumIO/anaconda-issues/issues/7256