html_url,issue_url,id,node_id,user,created_at,updated_at,author_association,body,reactions,performed_via_github_app,issue https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/1452#issuecomment-309171587,https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/1452,309171587,MDEyOklzc3VlQ29tbWVudDMwOTE3MTU4Nw==,1217238,2017-06-17T00:19:32Z,2017-06-17T00:19:32Z,MEMBER,"It looks like this variable has an attribute `_FillValue = -1`, which isn't a valid string value: ``` In [18]: ds['tidenames'].encoding Out[18]: {'_FillValue': -1, 'dtype': dtype('S1'), 'original_shape': (38, 64), 'source': 'http://geoport.whoi.edu/thredds/dodsC/usgs/vault0/models/tides/vdatum_gulf_of_maine/adcirc54_38_orig.nc'} ``` Potentially we could update xarray's CF conventions code to handle inconsistent dtypes and `_FillValue` attributes, or possibly this file should be fixed instead. A work around is to set `mask_and_scale=False`: ``` In [19]: ds = xr.open_dataset(url, mask_and_scale=False) In [21]: ds['tidenames'] Out[21]: array([b'STEADY ', b'MN ', b'SM ', b'K1 ', b'O1 ', b'P1 ', b'Q1 ', b'SO1 ', b'MNS2 ', b'2MS2 ', b'N2 ', b'M2 ', b'2MN2 ', b'S2 ', b'K2 ', b'MSN2 ', b'2SM2 ', b'MO3 ', b'SO3/MK3', b'SK3 ', b'N4 ', b'3MS4 ', b'MN4 ', b'M4 ', b'3MN4 ', b'MS4 ', b'2MSN4 ', b'2NM6 ', b'2MN6 ', b'M6 ', b'MSN6 ', b'2MS6 ', b'2SM6 ', b'2(MN)8 ', b'3MN8 ', b'M8 ', b'2MSN8 ', b'3MS8 '], dtype='|S64') Dimensions without coordinates: ntides Attributes: long_name: Tide Constituent missing_value: -1 standard_name: tide_constituent ```","{""total_count"": 0, ""+1"": 0, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,235687353