config YAML error: found character that cannot start any token

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but when I parse this file:

smtp:
    port: 25
    host: smtp.mail.com
    username: johndoe
    password: secretpassword

with

config.ParseYaml(configData)

I get

YAML error: line 1: found character that cannot start any token

Jun 03 '13 11:06 stephanos

Check if you are using tabs for indentation. YAML doesn't allow tabs; it requires spaces.

Jun 03 '13 13:06 moraes

This is a year late, but... thank you moraes, you solved my issue. :)

Apr 17 '14 00:04 egeersoz

Mine too ;)

Jun 02 '15 12:06 aeneasr

Doh

Aug 01 '15 21:08 wader

Glad I'm not the only one here overlooking simple things, thanks @moraes

Oct 06 '15 14:10 brendangibat

So helpful.

Oct 19 '15 19:10 JulianKingman

Looks like YAML syntax should be reconsidered..

Oct 19 '15 19:10 aeneasr

:+1:

Feb 06 '16 19:02 34code

And I wondered whole fu**ing day why does Vim replace tabs with spaces when I edit yaml... :D

Feb 07 '16 14:02 nemanjan00

Thanks

May 27 '16 05:05 kevingo

Thanks. 👍

May 27 '16 07:05 rishiloyola

Thanks a lot! Took me half a day to resolve this issue.

Aug 11 '16 10:08 jealous

Simple but strong. Helped me too.

Sep 09 '16 03:09 odravison

it helped me as well :)

Feb 03 '17 03:02 RohithChandran

it helps me too

Mar 02 '17 08:03 kehao95

found character '' that cannot start any token - pwd`/auth:/usr/local/apache2/conf

Apr 03 '17 11:04 tomachinz

Thanks

Apr 07 '17 14:04 ezhiliamplus

👍 Saving the day!

Apr 27 '17 11:04 bahramkarimi

ahah yup! one more! thanks man :)

May 09 '17 16:05 bitfede

thanks!!

Aug 04 '17 05:08 yusuken-freee

me too~ thanks

Aug 10 '17 05:08 tedqian

thanks!!

Aug 12 '17 00:08 multiarts

Thank you

Sep 24 '17 12:09 dancwilliams

Thank you, savior.

Oct 01 '17 18:10 rohitpujar

Big thx) -

Oct 20 '17 20:10 WiRight

Thanks much. :)

Oct 30 '17 09:10 rotelando

And my axe! Solved my issue!

Nov 06 '17 17:11 ghost

thanks!

Nov 15 '17 01:11 daveyman123

Same here. Thanks If you use VIM,

set list
set listchars=tab:>-

will find those busters

Dec 01 '17 06:12 yahavb

Had the same problem with menus. Was using tabs (as per the video I was watching). Changing to spaces solved it. Thank you.

Jan 10 '18 16:01 boggled-mind

Thanks a lot !

Feb 11 '18 01:02 Tchuuu

A great day must be remembered!!! Thank you!

Feb 15 '18 18:02 LingyunSu

Thanks so much!!!! I've spent too much time on finding any spelling error T_T

Mar 09 '18 08:03 sukizuo

I have just used 4 space to indent got the same error. Please guide me where I am wrong.

Mar 24 '18 18:03 Akash187

@Akash187 you sure it's spaces, maybe your editor does some smartness on save etc? if your unsure have a look with hexdump -C etc

Mar 24 '18 18:03 wader

thanks a lot! saved a lot of time.

Apr 10 '18 16:04 kollipara

Thanks a lot @moraes

Apr 19 '18 15:04 dapseen

+1 for the Thanks a lot section :grinning:

Apr 23 '18 13:04 zpalazov

+1 for the Thanks a lot

Apr 25 '18 17:04 reddish-purple-ocelot

+1 Thanks !!!

Apr 30 '18 08:04 varunchandak

+1 Thanks a lot, :)

May 10 '18 10:05 eundoosong

Thanks！！！

May 23 '18 02:05 law-lee

5 years later and moares comment saved my ass.

Jul 19 '18 13:07 patricf

Saved my day... 5yrs later

Jul 28 '18 14:07 nickchacha

Thank you so so much.

Aug 21 '18 06:08 dibya001

Found this when trying to config a bond network interface under Ubuntu 18.04 for HOURS! yaml and netplan SUCK!! The old plain style in /etc/network/interfaces worked for decades, and now we all need something new? What a waste of lifetime!

Sep 19 '18 19:09 der-stefan

Damn. Thank you so much man. Cheers. :smile:

Sep 21 '18 14:09 adamhtoolwin

Yup, still useful knowledge.

Oct 10 '18 20:10 psaxton

@Akash187 you sure it's spaces, maybe your editor does some smartness on save etc? if your unsure have a look with hexdump -C etc

Thank you @Akash187 Your comment saved me a lot of pain. Nano left some tabs below where I was editing, flushed it, cleaned it, and it's now working!

Nov 01 '18 04:11 Old-Nerd

Mine too ;)

Nov 05 '18 06:11 AksHuge

我也是，就是tab缩进的问题

Nov 10 '18 08:11 LLLLLLW

great!

Dec 01 '18 03:12 abdennour

few years later... :) Big Thanks.. @moraes ...... I scratched my head for hours over this one, because I explicitly set my editor for tab == 2 spaces, never thought that could be a problem hehe

Dec 04 '18 09:12 Goku-San

Watch for trailing lines at the end of the file - a tab there breaks things too

Dec 08 '18 00:12 gherlein

Tried removing the space but still got the same error.

Deleted the file and created a new one with same stuff ... worked for me.

Added for reference :)

Jan 25 '19 06:01 ankyjk

Came here for the same issue on a totally unrelated project and this saved my day: thanks @moraes!

May 08 '19 17:05 claudiodangelis

find tabs across all yaml files in current dir recursively : grep -rn --include=*.{yaml,yml} "\t" ./

May 21 '19 21:05 dmitrytokarev

Thank you.

May 25 '19 01:05 Sushmeet

Thank you!

May 28 '19 13:05 kassavage

Check if you are using tabs for indentation. YAML doesn't allow tabs; it requires spaces.

6 years after your answer, you solved my issue. Thank you

Jul 27 '19 18:07 abenzakour

@moraes Greatly appreciated! @nemanjan00 weird, cause my Vim didn't do it, and that's how I ended up here :)

Sep 04 '19 22:09 andriimakarenko

Sounds like you need to take a look at my dotfiles

Sep 05 '19 01:09 nemanjan00

@nemanjan00 actually not. I wrote a Vim plugin for myself a while ago and forgot the nuances of what exactly it does. Turns out, among other things it replaces spaces with hard tabs, and I forgot it does. So it either undoes what Vim does by default or just overrides it.

Anyways, your config is really nice, especially the bottom stripe, it's much more informative than the one I got. Thank you for sharing it!

Sep 05 '19 07:09 andriimakarenko

5 Years later still helping people (myself included) !

Sep 30 '19 03:09 mmihira

Thanks :)

Oct 16 '19 06:10 heyitsmekishore

@moraes it seems to me that tab is actually an valid character in yaml by the spec https://yaml.org/spec/1.2/spec.html , see section 5.5. White Space Characters

Dec 20 '19 09:12 flyfy1

Lol this is such a great post, I had no idea why my site wasn't rendering and I just re wrote it! I made sure there were no tabs and it worked! 6.5 years later still relevant!

Jan 08 '20 22:01 AmitLevinson

@moraes Dude you are awesome

Feb 04 '20 14:02 sagespidy

@moraes Thanks man /| Never too late :)

Mar 03 '20 10:03 srinathln7

@moraes one more lol thanks

Mar 03 '20 19:03 st-f

@moraes thx from 2020 :)

Mar 10 '20 17:03 VitaliiLototskyi

thanks!

Mar 27 '20 22:03 sijanec

I'm going to unsubscribe this issue. My email inbox is already full. hahahaha

Mar 28 '20 12:03 odravison

thanks！

Apr 15 '20 20:04 JourneyWoo

Thank you!!!!!

Apr 23 '20 18:04 arthuralvaresbandtec

@moraes Thank you very much, while googling I got this link, I was struck with this from last 2 days, With your one line comment i solved my issues in deployment file, Application running in AKS now, Thank you very much, Great information never gets older:)

Apr 25 '20 12:04 radhegithub

This issue cost me for an hour!

Thank you!!! I feel better now!

May 01 '20 05:05 IEB-Richard

Well, I had a problem with a variable containing @ character at the start. Fixed by | quote

Jun 23 '20 07:06 defusioner

Cheers bud

Jun 26 '20 00:06 pmgexpo17

7 years after your answer, you saved my time. Thank you

Jul 18 '20 12:07 ykfq

works for me， thanks！！！

Sep 15 '20 01:09 NewHongjayGitHub

Thank you, I had some evil tabs. You saved me a lot of hair-pulling.

Sep 16 '20 04:09 Zorlin

@moraes, Dude, Thank you. Saved my day!.

Oct 21 '20 05:10 baksharp

Thanks !!! Solved my headache

Dec 17 '20 13:12 amjack0

Same here. Thanks If you use VIM,
set list
set listchars=tab:>-
will find those busters

Thanks !

Feb 12 '21 11:02 admsys-probox

Nano users don't have this problem, because mixed tabs/spaces show in red. But they have other problems.

Feb 12 '21 12:02 sijanec

Solved my issue too !! thanks

Feb 15 '21 19:02 post2tr

Thank you!

Apr 27 '21 06:04 wlabatey

Thank you!!

Jun 26 '21 21:06 misskecupbung

This is madness!

Jul 02 '21 19:07 HalidCisse

Check if you are using tabs for indentation. YAML doesn't allow tabs; it requires spaces.

This post is the defacto google answer for that error. Thanks for that. Besides that, if the error message has gotten a little bit more love, we could all saved 5 mins of our life :D