Folks-

Why do I wait so long before google-ing my problem, and then (usually) find myself right back here at the PM site, finding the answer in an older node - Grrrrrr!

This problem was solved in Weird error with Cryprt::Blowfish and Crypt::DES

What happens here is that basically some code down the line (I don't know who or where yet, but I'm looking sternly at CheckButton) flipped the UTF-8 bit on this string (where is that, some internal flag that all Perl strings have?). This makes Crypt::DES and Crypt::Blowfish unhappy with the text they were asked to encrypt.

To fix my particular test script, simply add this at the first line of hostls():

use utf8;
utf8::downgrade($qqq);
[download]

Then, everything works fine. Many thanks to all who tried to help on this one! My grumpy-face is now gone.

-Craig