I have stumbled on similar behavior just this week. I don't have the original file for which it happened, but it turns out it is really simple to generate file that reproduces this: ```bash echo "here comes the null:_more text here" | sed 's/_/\x00/' > /tmp/test.txt ``` Just to check that it is really written as intended: ``` $ hexdump -C /tmp/test.txt 00000000 68 65 72 65 20 63 6f 6d 65 73 20 74 68 65 20 6e |here comes the n| 00000010 75 6c 6c 3a 00 6d 6f 72 65 20 74 65 78 74 20 68 |ull:.more text h| 00000020 65 72 65 0a |ere.| 00000024 ``` Opening it with `geany -c /tmp/empty_dir -v /tmp/test.txt` shows only the text up to "here comes the null:" and the rest is truncated. The debug messages on the stdout appear as if the file passed as valid UTF-8.
Also: While I was testing this, sometimes pretty similar files opened as UTF-16LE, which totally scrambled the contents. Unfortunately, I can't reproduce that now, even if I try to generate the file exactly the same as before. It almost feels like it depends on how things happen to be layed out in memory or something else undefined behaviorish.