That was the clue I needed. The underlying content method from HTTP::Message will get me the original unmolested byte string from the server. So all I have to do is use $mech->response->content instead of $mech->content, and it works perfectly.

Thanks!

In reply to Re^2: Dealing with binary data and WWW::Mechanize and encoding stuff by friedo
in thread Dealing with binary data and WWW::Mechanize and encoding stuff by friedo

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