title: ERROR CASSANDRA: 'ascii' codec can't decode bye 0xe1 in position 27: ordinal not in range(128) cqlsh
body: <p>I'm new in Cassandra and I have a trouble inserting some rows in a database getting the error of the title. </p>
  
  <p>I use cassandra 1.0.8 and cqlsh for doing changes in my database.</p>
  
  <p>Next, I explain the given steps before I get the error:</p>
  
  <p>CREATE A COLUMN FAMILY</p>
  
  <pre><code>CREATE TABLE test (
      col1 int PRIMARY KEY,
  col2 bigint, 
  col3 boolean,
  col4 timestamp
  );
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>INSERT SEVERAL ROWS WITHOUT SPECIFICYING ALL OF COLUMNS OF THE TABLE</p>
  
  <pre><code>insert into test (col1, col2, col3) values (1, 100, true);
  insert into test (col1, col2, col3) values (2, 200, false);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>SELECT FOR CHECKING THAT ROWS HAVE BEEN INSERTED CORRECTLY</p>
  
  <pre><code>select * from test;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The result is the following:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8JRri.png" alt="Result of select * from test"></p>
  
  <p>INSERT A ROW SPECIFICYING A VALUE FOR THE col4 (NOT SPECIFIED BEFORE)</p>
  
  <pre><code>insert into test (col1, col2, col3, col4) values (3, 100, true, '2011-02-03');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>SELECT FOR CHECKING THAT ROW HAS BEEN INSERTED CORRECTLY</p>
  
  <pre><code>select * from test;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In this SELECT is  the error. The result is the following:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/5SB9J.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>SELECT EACH COLUMN OF THE TABLE SEPARATELY</p>
  
  <pre><code>select col1 from test;
  select col2 from test;
  select col3 from test;
  select col4 from test;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>it works fine and shows the right values:</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LQZOu.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>Then, my question is: what's the problem in the first SELECT? what's wrong?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance!!</p>
  
  <p>NOTE:</p>
  
  <p>If I define col4 as Integer rather than a timestamp it works. However, I've tried to insert col4 as the normalized format yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm (I've tried with '2011-02-03 01:05' and '2011-02-03 01:05:10') but it doesn't work.</p>