python config_error ai_generated true

ConfigParser.MissingSectionHeaderError: File contains no section headers. file: setup.cfg, line: 1 '[metadata]\n'

ID: python/setuptools-setup-cfg-parse-error

Also available as: JSON · Markdown · 中文
80%Fix Rate
85%Confidence
0Evidence
2024-04-10First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
3.8 active — — —
3.9 active — — —
3.10 active — — —
3.11 active — — —
3.12 active — — —

Root Cause

The setup.cfg file is malformed, missing a section header at the beginning or having incorrect encoding.

generic

中文

setup.cfg 文件格式错误，开头缺少节标题或编码不正确。

Workarounds

  1. 95% success Ensure the first line is a valid section header like [metadata] or [options] 
    Edit setup.cfg so that line 1 is exactly '[metadata]' without leading spaces.
  2. 90% success Use UTF-8 encoding and no BOM 
    Re-save the file as UTF-8 without BOM using a text editor like VS Code or Notepad++.

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Adding extra blank lines before [metadata] 85% fail

    The parser expects the first non-empty line to be a section header.

  2. Changing file extension to .txt 90% fail

    setuptools specifically looks for setup.cfg; renaming breaks detection.