Disable byte decoding on load.

Author: pp-mo

lib/iris/fileformats/cf.py

@@ -89,6 +89,11 @@ def __init__(self, name, data):
 
         self.cf_data = data
         """NetCDF4 Variable data instance."""
+        # Note: *always* disable encoding/decoding translations
+        #  To avoid current known problems
+        #  See https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf4-python/issues/1440
+        data.set_auto_chartostring(False)
+        # ALSO NOTE: not stored. NetCDFDataProxy must re-assert when re-loading.
 
         """File source of the NetCDF content."""
         try:

lib/iris/fileformats/netcdf/_thread_safe_nc.py

@@ -336,6 +336,11 @@ def __getitem__(self, keys):
             dataset = netCDF4.Dataset(self.path)
             try:
                 variable = dataset.variables[self.variable_name]
+                # ALWAYS disable byte encoding/decoding
+                #  To avoid current known problems
+                #  See https://github.com/Unidata/netcdf4-python/issues/1440
+                variable.set_auto_chartostring(False)
+
                 # Get the NetCDF variable data and slice.
                 var = variable[keys]
             finally: