modelcontextprotocol / modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk
stdio_client crashes on malformed UTF-8 from child stdout instead of surfacing parse error
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 24.3k
- Forks
- 4k
- Avg merge
- 1d 1h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 31
Description
Summary
mcp.client.stdio.stdio_client() crashes when the spawned child process writes invalid UTF-8 bytes to stdout.
The transport currently decodes child stdout with encoding_error_handler="strict", so malformed bytes raise during TextReceiveStream(...) iteration. That exception escapes the decoding loop and brings down the transport task group instead of surfacing the bad line as an in-stream parse error.
Why this looks like a bug
The SDK already hardened the server side for the analogous case in PR #2302 (fix: handle non-UTF-8 bytes in stdio server stdin). That change explicitly preferred:
- replace invalid bytes with U+FFFD,
- let JSON validation fail on the malformed line, and
- keep the transport alive so subsequent valid messages can still be processed.
The client side still behaves asymmetrically today. A buggy or non-compliant child server can kill the Python client transport with a single malformed line even if the next line is valid JSON-RPC.
That seems inconsistent with the current stdio robustness direction.
Reproduction
A minimal child process that writes one malformed line and then one valid JSON-RPC line:
import sys
import time
sys.stdout.buffer.write(b"\xff\xfe\n")
sys.stdout.buffer.write(b'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"ping"}\n')
sys.stdout.buffer.flush()
time.sleep(0.2)
With current stdio_client(...) defaults, the transport raises ExceptionGroup instead of continuing.
Expected behavior
The malformed line should be surfaced as an in-stream parse / validation error, and the next valid JSON-RPC line should still be received.
Observed behavior
The transport task group fails before the valid follow-up message is delivered.
Proposed fix
Match the server-side approach from PR #2302:
- default
StdioServerParameters.encoding_error_handlerto"replace" - continue treating malformed decoded lines as JSON validation failures
- keep the background stdio tasks resilient during early subprocess shutdown / abrupt close
Validation
I reproduced this locally against current main and verified that a minimal patch plus a regression test fixes it.
A focused regression test in tests/client/test_stdio.py can assert:
- first item from the read stream is an
Exception - second item is the valid
SessionMessage
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start in mcp.client.stdio.stdio_client() and tests/client/test_stdio.py; review how TextReceiveStream decoding and read-stream iteration handle encoding errors. Add the malformed-then-valid regression described in the issue, then run the focused test to verify the first item is an Exception, the second a valid SessionMessage, and the transport remains alive.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- backend, testing
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Newbie friendliness
- 78/100