title: Scipy.loadmat() ---- SystemError: ../Objects/stringobject.c:3899: bad argument to internal function
body: <p>I'm trying to load a .mat file into python that is quite large ( >75MB) and I am getting the following error. Can this be helped?</p>
  
  <pre><code>Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "prop_keys.py", line 34, in &lt;module&gt;
      prop_d = scipy.io.loadmat(prop)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/scipy/io/matlab/mio.py", line 175, in loadmat
      matfile_dict = MR.get_variables(variable_names)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/scipy/io/matlab/mio5.py", line 272, in get_variables
      hdr, next_position = self.read_var_header()
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/scipy/io/matlab/mio5.py", line 224, in read_var_header
      stream = BytesIO(dcor.decompress(data))
  SystemError: ../Objects/stringobject.c:3899: bad argument to internal function
  </code></pre>