Variable Explorer freezes when certain binary data is loaded

[rkthales]

Description of your problem

spyder 2.3.8 and later (also tested 3.0.0b2) appear to crash when the Variable Explorer tab is open and binary string data containing characters above 0x7F is saved to a variable, at least on Windows. This makes it impossible to load binary data from files unless the Variable Explorer is closed.

To recover use of Spyder after this occurs, the python.exe process that is freezing Spyder has to be killed from the Windows Task Manager. Going back to 2.3.7 seems to resolve the issue.

What steps will reproduce the problem?

val='\x0F' # Works
val='\x7F' # Works
val='\x80' # Freezes spyder console in versions >= 2.3.8

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Spyder should not crash when assigning binary data to a variable. Spyder does in fact crash (in versions >= 2.3.8 with the Variable Explorer tab open).

Versions and main components

• Spyder Version: 2.3.8, 3.0.0b2
• Python Version: 2.7.11 64-bit
• Operating system: Windows 7 64-bit

Additional information
When Spyder crashes and I kill the python.exe process, I get the following traceback:

>>> val='\x0F' # Works
>>> val='\x7F' # Works
>>> val='\x80' # Freezes spyder console in versions >= 2.3.8
>>> Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Anaconda2\lib\threading.py", line 801, in __bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
  File "C:\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\spyderlib\widgets\externalshell\monitor.py", line 574, in run
    self.update_remote_view()
  File "C:\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\spyderlib\widgets\externalshell\monitor.py", line 455, in update_remote_view
    remote_view = make_remote_view(ns, settings, more_excluded_names)
  File "C:\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\spyderlib\widgets\externalshell\monitor.py", line 84, in make_remote_view
    minmax=settings['minmax'])
  File "C:\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\spyderlib\widgets\variableexplorer\utils.py", line 298, in value_to_display
    return display
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'display' referenced before assignment

Dependencies

For 3.0.0b2 (issue also occurs on 2.3.8, though):
IPython >=3.0 : 4.1.2 (OK)
jedi >=0.8.1;<0.9.0: 0.8.1 (OK)
matplotlib >=1.0 : 1.5.1 (OK)
numpy >=1.7 : 1.10.4 (OK)
pandas >=0.13.1 : 0.17.1 (OK)
pep8 >=0.6 : 1.7.0 (OK)
pyflakes >=0.5.0 : 1.1.0 (OK)
pygments >=1.6 : 2.1.1 (OK)
pylint >=0.25 : 1.5.4 (OK)
qtconsole >=4.0 : 4.1.1 (OK)
rope >=0.9.4 : 0.9.4-1 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6 : 1.3.5 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3 : 0.7.6.1 (OK)
zmq >=13.0.0 : 15.2.0 (OK)