Signing Python 2 beem scripts stopped working

Project Information

• Repository: https://github.com/holgern/beem
• Project Name: beem - Unofficial Python Library for Steem
• Publisher: @holger80

Expected behavior

A few days ago my automated @pibarabot posts stopped working. To be precise, the wtw_process_json.py script started crashing at the point where it should be posting the daily report.

The relevant part of the script:

beneficiaries = [{'account':'freezepeach', 'weight':5000},
      {'account':'pibara', 'weight':5000}]
    metafile = join(mypath,"wtw-steem-meta-" + date + ".json")
    postfile = join(mypath,"wtw-" + date + ".MD")
    with open(metafile) as m:
        json_metadata = json.loads(m.read())
    with open(postfile) as p:
        body = p.read()
    s = Steem(keys=fjson.conf["steem-posting-key"], nobroadcast=False)
    subject = "Flag-war stats for posts made on " + date
    tx = s.post(subject, body, author=fjson.conf["steem-account"], 
        tags=["stats","steem","steemit","flags","flagwars"],
        json_metadata=json_metadata, beneficiaries=beneficiaries)

Actual behavior

Instead of posting to the blockchain, the script has been dying with a beem.exceptions.InvalidWifError exception.
As the keys used haven't actually changed, this exception is unexpected.

Looking closer at the bug, I found an other old Python2 script exibiting the same behaviour:

#!/usr/bin/env python2
from beem import Steem
import beem
keys = ["REPLACEWITHEREALKEY1"],["REPLACEWITHREALKEY2"]
s = Steem(keys=keys)
a = beem.account.Account("pibara",steem_instance=s)
delegations = dict();
delegations["mattockfs"] = 1.0593
for account in delegations.keys():
    vests = 1000000*delegations[account]
    a.delegate_vesting_shares(account,vests)

Invocation results in a really long wait, followed by the following output:

As this script is a python version neutral script, it can easily be shown that this problem only occurs with Python 2 by only changing the first line of the script to:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

How to reproduce

The following information might be relevant to reproduction

• Beem version: 0.20.9
• Operating system: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
• Python2 beem scripts that worked perfectly every day for months on end stopped working on the 27th of October.

GitHub Account

• https://github.com/pibara-utopian/