Python scripts runs from PythonWin but not ArcCatalog (ArcGIS 10)

Question

I add a field to the target FeatureClass it is not present, via arcpy.AddField_management(...). Works fine from PythonWin, but the AddField call fails when the script is run from ArcCatalog. I have this exception catch code:

except Exception as ErrorDesc:
    Errors = "TRUE"
    arcpy.AddMessage("An unknown error occurred:")
    arcpy.AddMessage(ErrorDesc.message)

But the error I get is at the end of this output:

Getting list of fields.
Adding PC field to target.
An unknown error occurred:
Object: Tool or environment <摁䙤敩摬浟湡条浥湥t> not found

And that Mandarin text - is that unicode being mangled?

Answer 1

I got a similar issue here, with some chinese random garble (which looks like some junk from memory):

In my case I load a custom toolbox. When I try to execute a tool from this tbx from my script, I got this in ArcMap 10, SP5:

Tool or environment <剉偁潔卅䥒敖瑣牯卟慴潴汩䥇呓潯獬> not found

When running the script from my IDE, or from a terminal window, it works fine.

What I did was to add some additional code to show the contents of the toolbox I just loaded:

toolbox_file = 'C:\Users\path\to\MyTools.tbx'
arcpy.AddMessage('Importing toolbox: ' + toolbox_file)
tbx = arcpy.ImportToolbox(toolbox_file)
if tbx is None:
    arcpy.AddError("Toolbox is null")
else:
    arcpy.AddMessage("debug: listing tools")
    tools = arcpy.ListTools("*MyGISTools*")
    arcpy.AddMessage("Number of tools found: %i" % len(tools))
    for tool in tools:
        arcpy.AddMessage(arcpy.Usage(tool))

In the IDE and the terminal I got a list of all the tools with their parameters, as expected.

However, in ArcMap, I got a bunch of

Method ToESRIRasterScript_MyGisTools not found. Choices: Method ToESRIRasterScript_MyGisTools not unique, please use ToolboxName_ToolName
Method ToIRAPVectorScript_MyGisTools not found. Choices: Method ToIRAPVectorScript_MyGisTools not unique, please use ToolboxName_ToolName.
Method ToESRIVectorScript_MyGisTools not found. Choices: Method ToESRIVectorScript_MyGisTools not unique, please use ToolboxName_ToolName.
Method PrepareIRAPforInput_MyGisTools not found. Choices: Method PrepareIRAPforInput_MyGisTools not unique, please use ToolboxName_ToolName.

This seemed to indicate that something was duplicated. When I removed my toolbox from ArcToolbox, and re-ran it from the Catalog window, it all worked just fine.