MissingSectionHeaderError: File contains no section headers

Question

I am trying to build collective.simserver according to this manual, with some modifications:

instead of: virtualenv --python=bin/python2.7 simserver/
I am using: virtualenv --python=myVirtualEnv/bin/python simserver

and I managed to come to this point:

myVirtualEnv/bin/python bootstrap.py

and then it breaks apart with this error info:

An internal error occurred due to a bug in either zc.buildout or in a
recipe being used:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/tmpLiHZgo/zc.buildout-1.6.3-py2.6.egg/zc/buildout/buildout.py", line 1851, in main
    command)
  File "/tmp/tmpLiHZgo/zc.buildout-1.6.3-py2.6.egg/zc/buildout/buildout.py", line 203, in __init__
    data['buildout'].copy(), override, set()))
  File "/tmp/tmpLiHZgo/zc.buildout-1.6.3-py2.6.egg/zc/buildout/buildout.py", line 1465, in _open
    parser.readfp(fp)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/ConfigParser.py", line 305, in readfp
    self._read(fp, filename)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/ConfigParser.py", line 482, in _read
    raise MissingSectionHeaderError(fpname, lineno, line)
MissingSectionHeaderError: File contains no section headers.
file: /home/nenad/buildout.cfg, line: 4
'<!DOCTYPE html>\n'
Mint-AMD64 nenad #

What might be wrong?

score 21 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 26 '15 at 16:19

21

i think im late for answer but it happened for me when i saved Config file as UTF-8 Try saving the file as ANSI.

answered Oct 26 '15 at 16:19

Ali SH

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Works with UTF-8 without BOM for python 3.5 – Humberto Pinheiro Apr 13 '16 at 17:45
switching from UTF-8 to ANSI solved this for me. – Flying Thunder May 28 '21 at 15:34

score 20 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '21 at 05:48

20

For me, I've seen this error because I mistakenly assume the API of .read_file() accepts a file path, but it only accepts a file handle.

answered Apr 06 '21 at 05:48

pitfall

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This was exactly my problem as well. – Simon Rose Jun 09 '21 at 11:34
LOL. Funny. Less typing more reading next time! Thanks! – Ondřej Kolín Nov 04 '21 at 11:57

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited May 30 '22 at 15:58

12

There is no section header in the configuration file.

Essentially, the file consists of sections, each of which contains keys with values.

Docs ConfigParser python module

edited May 30 '22 at 15:58

powlo

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answered Apr 19 '13 at 09:01

Synck

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score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 11 '20 at 08:40

This error, is most likely because the sections in the config file are missing a header (or it is incorrectly specified). See the configparser docs to see the format the configuration files must have.

A configuration file consists of sections, which have to be preceded by a [header], for instance:

[DEFAULT]
ServerAliveInterval = 45
Compression = yes
CompressionLevel = 9
ForwardX11 = yes

[bitbucket.org]
User = hg

[topsecret.server.com]
Port = 50022
ForwardX11 = no

And each section in the config file will contain key/value pairs separated by a string (= or : by default). The header of each section has to be in the format [header], anything different will yield a configparser.MissingSectionHeaderError.

In my case, the file has missing one header – A.Casanova Apr 11 '23 at 07:58 — A.Casanova, Apr 11 '23 at 07:58

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered May 30 '22 at 16:33

Although the question was specifically asked in relation to buildout, this exception can occur more generally if you mistakenly pass a filename instead of a filehandle (or anything else file-like) to ConfigParser.read_file

Wrong:

config  = ConfigParser()
config.read_file('config.ini')

Right:

config = ConfigParser()
with open('config.ini') as fh:
    config.read_file(fh)
# or:
config.read('config.ini')

MissingSectionHeaderError: File contains no section headers

5 Answers5

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