Known Issue: Import of Citrix remote application *.raa files containing non-ASCII characters may fail with "XmlException: Invalid character in the given encoding" (IOJ-1986841)

[#1]

Summary

Data files named *.raa containing Citrix remote application details may fail to be imported if they contain non-ASCII characters.

This issue occurs because non-ASCII characters in *.raa files are not written using an appropriate character encoding.

Details

When a problematic .raa file is uploaded to the inventory server, logging similar to the following will be output into the C:\ProgramData\Flexera Software\Compliance\Logging\WebResolvers\dispatcher.log file:

[ERROR 2021-03-12 16:00:15,811 46739309ms Dispatcher            ] Failed to run importer
System.Xml.XmlException: Invalid character in the given encoding. Line 1, position 1392236.
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.InvalidCharRecovery(Int32& bytesCount, Int32& charsCount)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.GetChars(Int32 maxCharsCount)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ReadData()
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseAttributeValueSlow(Int32 curPos, Char quoteChar, NodeData attr)
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseAttributes()
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElement()
   at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent()
   at System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadNode(Boolean skipOverWhitespace)
   at System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadDocSequence(XmlDocument parentDoc)
   at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(XmlReader reader)
   at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(Stream inStream)
   at Flexera.RemoteApplication.Importer.RemoteApplicationImportPlugin.Import(String importType, Stream inputStream, Boolean isGzipped, String sourceIdentifier, String targetFilename, MGSLicenseTermCheckResult licenseCheckResult, ImportProcessingStats& stats, IDispatcherPreferences preferences)
   at ManageSoft.Import.Dispatcher.runImporter_ActualExecution_invokeImporter(ItemProcessingTask processingTask)

Reproduction steps

Place a problematic .raa file in a temporary directory such as C:\Temp\RemoteApplication on a processing server, and run the following command in a cmd shell window to import the file:

mgsimport.exe -e -t RemoteApplication -d C:\Temp\RemoteApplication

If the file is affected by this issue, the process will fail with output like the following:

Starting Importer...
Processing 1 files
Processing file C:\Temp\RemoteApplication\SERVER (XenApp).raa: 
XML EXCEPTION: -------------------- System.Xml.XmlException: Invalid character in the given encoding. 
Line 1, position 2367. at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.InvalidCharRecovery(Int32& bytesCount, Int32& charsCount)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.GetChars(Int32 maxCharsCount)
[...]
at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(Stream inStream)
at Flexera.RemoteApplication.Importer.RemoteApplicationImportPlugin.Import(String importType, Stream inputStream, Boolean isGzipped, String sourceIdentifier, String targetFilename, MGSLicenseTermCheckResult licenseCheckResult, ImportProcessingStats& stats, IDispatcherPreferences preferences

Further details

An example of an element in a .raa file that may cause this problem is the following (note the registered trademark "®" character that appears in the appFileDesc attribute value):

<app farmName="Citrix_AU" appID="IT Admin" appName="IT Admin" appFileName="wscript.exe" appFileVersion="5.812.10240.16384" appFilePublisher="Microsoft Corporation" appFileDesc="Microsoft ® Windows Based Script Host" userSid="" serverName="" serverDomainName="" isStreamingProfile="0" />

Workaround

Before attempting to import a problematic *.raa file, put a process in place to either convert the file to a UTF-8 encoding, or remove any non-ASCII characters.

Fix status

This issue has been fixed in the following FlexNet Manager Suite releases: 2021 R1 (On Premises), 2021 R1.1 / Sep 2021 (Cloud)

Other information

Affected components: Integration: Citrix, Uploaded file importers

Master issue ID: IOJ-1986841

Also known as: FNML-73907