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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]: <xarray.DataArray 'tidenames' (ntides: 38)> 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 ```

 
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