[Gpsbabel-code] illegal GPX from groundspeak again

[Robert L. <rob...@us...>]

[ moved to -code from -misc & private email ] 

Michael Robinson wrote:
> I have attached the file (unfound.gpx)

If you're using an environment that lets you see the error messages, the
problem is plain as day:

$ ./gpsbabel -i gpx -f /tmp/uf.gpx -o csv -F /dev/null
GPX: Ignoring illegal character &#x0;&#x0;On our final approach to the cache, there was no one around, But, after we TNLNSL, about 500 runners from a 10K race loped by about 10 feet from us. Luckily, they were more interested in "personal bests" than what we were doing. Thanks for hunt.</groundspeak:text>
[ ... ] 
        Consider emailing Groundspeak at <co...@gr...>
        about illegal characters in their GPX files.

Sure enough: the cache in question has illegal data in it:

$ SAX2Count uf.gpx

Fatal Error at file /tmp/uf.gpx, line 5020, char 50
  Message: Invalid character reference

Experienced babel-heads will have a sense of deja vu on this.  For
a long time, this was a big support problem for us.  Last December,
Groundspeak fixed this problem and we haven't had a single report of it
since then.

The offending log is from July 24 on GCFECF.  Send this to
co...@ge... and encourage them to _not_ manually fix this
log, but instead find whatever bug they've re-introduced into the system
that allowed this problem to reappear and correct it there before
destroying the test case.

The last time we did this, it took over a year to get it fixed because
they kept manually "fixing" the offending logs instead of tracking and
whacking the root problem.  Meanwhile, we were getting several bug
reports each week on this topic and users were caught in the middle.

RJL