I've isolated the files causing the issue, it is not about non-ASCII character. It seems that *.part.met content is invalid since there is neither the name nor the hash.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/.xMule/foo$ ls -l 004.part* -rw-r--r-- 1 riccardo riccardo 119 2005-03-22 15:48 004.part.met.BAK -rw-r--r-- 1 riccardo riccardo 119 2005-03-22 15:48 004.part.met -rw-r--r-- 1 riccardo riccardo 0 2005-03-22 15:48 004.part [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/.xMule/foo$ cat 004.part.met [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/.xMule/foo$ cat 004.part.met.BAK [EMAIL PROTECTED] TIA, riccardo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]