I received Byte Order Mark (BOM) error on my batch file, what does this mean?

You had a Byte Order Mark (BOM) at the very beginning of your file. .NET Web Services are not compatible with this BOM. In general, if your file is successfully uploaded and then rejected for schema errors via email, it’s a BOM issue. This is viewable in a hexadecimal editor at the very beginning of your file as “EF BB BF” or “FF FE”

Below are a few resources regarding how to remove the BOM during the file creation:

This can also happen if you used the Microsoft XML Notepad application to edit your file before submitting. That application tends to insert the BOM in files.

Or to manually remove the BOM, open the file in Microsoft Notepad, then ‘Save As’, and select ANSI in the Encoding dropdown.