PDF files attached to forms are becoming corrupted

Products

• CA Harvest Software Change Manager
• CA Harvest Software Change Manager - OpenMake Meister

Issue/Introduction

PDF files uploaded as form attachments using the hfatt command-line utility become corrupted. The corruption is inconsistent and typically affects specific PDFs, particularly those with digital signatures. Observed symptoms include:

• Byte offsets within the PDF shift, causing the file to fail to open or display a "corrupted" error.
• Digital signatures become invalid after download.
• File size decreases slightly after the initial upload.
• Compressed and uncompressed attachment methods both result in corruption.

Environment

• CA Harvest Software Change Manager 14.5.01
• Linux Broker/Server
• Systems utilizing Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) or similar locales

Cause

The Harvest server misidentifies binary PDF files as text files when running on systems with certain locales (such as Latin-1). During the upload process, the server attempts to normalize line endings by stripping carriage return (\r) bytes. This data loss shifts the internal byte structure of the PDF, corrupting the file and breaking digital signatures.

Resolution

A defect has been identified and efix created regarding locale-sensitive binary detection. 

Additional Information

If you encounter the same issue, please contact the support team to request the EFix associated with defect DE669223