in reply to Re^4: error returned with XML::Simple or Data::Dumper
in thread error returned with XML::Simple or Data::Dumper

some xml parsing modules are more strict than others with regards to well formed and valid xml file etc. in your case i think you need to specify the encoding to be sure it's parsed
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
or whatever encoding you desire.
the hardest line to type correctly is: stty erase ^H