# How to use the Pre-loaded datasets?

**URL:** <https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144>\
**Category:** Software\
**Tags:** python, pyleoclim\
**Created:** [January 7, 2025, 7:55am UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144 "2025-01-07T07:55:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![zxc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f04885/32.png) [@zxc](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/zxc)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 7:55am UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/1 "2025-01-07T07:55:15Z")

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Hello, I encountered a problem when I first called the pre-loaded dataset in pyleoclim. It prompted a UnicodeDecodeError: ‘gbk’ codec can’t decode byte 0xb0 in position 3633: illegal multibyte sequence. How should I solve this?

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**Author:** ![jeg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.linked.earth/jeg/32/12_2.png) [@jeg](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/jeg)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/2 "2025-01-07T19:31:34Z")

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Thanks for reporting this @zxc . Which pre-loaded dataset is triggering this error?

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**Author:** ![zxc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f04885/32.png) [@zxc](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/zxc)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 2:28am UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/3 "2025-01-08T02:28:21Z")

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Hello, thank you for your reply. After importing the relevant modules according to the tutorial, I tried to run "**pyleo.utils.available\_dataset\_names()**"in Jupyter Notebook, but an error occurred during execution.

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**Author:** ![jeg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.linked.earth/jeg/32/12_2.png) [@jeg](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/jeg)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/4 "2025-01-08T02:55:13Z")

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It behaves normally for me:

 ![Screenshot 2025-01-07 at 18.53.31](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/linked/original/1X/d5d78f5f263a6cb7ee2c8f05776c366b19c6a7b5.png)

I’m guessing your environment may not be compatible with Pyleoclim. Can you try following [these installation instructions](https://pyleoclim-util.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html#creating-a-new-conda-environment) to the letter? Also, please let us know what machine/OS you are using.

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**Author:** ![zxc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f04885/32.png) [@zxc](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/zxc)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 3:29am UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/5 "2025-01-08T03:29:19Z")

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I am using the Windows operating system and followed the tutorial step by step, also installing the additional packages climlab,etc… The strange thing is that only these pre-loaded datasets fail to run, but the data from NOAA and PANGAEA in the tutorial can be imported and run without any issues.

 ![normal](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/linked/original/1X/6ec219bacc9a06992632de17ecd21465f0569836.png)  
 ![error](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/linked/original/1X/5a79561225b975ff2d60bd58425cac8da12dcb53.png)

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**Author:** ![jeg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.linked.earth/jeg/32/12_2.png) [@jeg](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/jeg)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2025, 11:49pm UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/6 "2025-01-08T23:49:54Z")

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It looks like your machine cannot parse the yaml file that describes those datasets, as it has non Unicode characters in expressions like “Foram bent δ18O [‰ PDB] (VPDB)”. I would look on StackOverflow for potential remedies. This is not an issue on other machines we know of.

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**Author:** ![khider](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.linked.earth/khider/32/5_2.png) [@khider](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/khider)\
**Post date:** [January 16, 2025, 7:39pm UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/7 "2025-01-16T19:39:07Z")

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If you can find that file on your computer (where the Pyleoclim folder is installed from PyPi), try to open it first with a regular text editor and then with `PyYAM`, it might tell you what to install on your machine to read it.

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**Author:** ![zxc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/f04885/32.png) [@zxc](https://discourse.linked.earth/u/zxc)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2025, 2:04pm UTC](https://discourse.linked.earth/t/how-to-use-the-pre-loaded-datasets/144/8 "2025-01-29T14:04:29Z")

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Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions! I’ll follow your advice to check the Pyleoclim folder files with a text editor first and then use PyYAML to identify any dependencies I need to install.