But this is a flat file, not xml/csv, so serve no purpose afaik.
[ And attributes were not needed in the original file. ]

The footerLength="0" and headerLength="0" are not an erroneous addition. They are result of issue Should be able to despray XML without rowTag specification

@Attila Vamos - I'm guessing this has something to do with the preserve compression issue.

You can reproduce it, by creating a compressed file on 1 cluster, then copying it (leaving Preserve Compression ticket) to another cluster.

NB: There's a related issue I opened : https://hpccsystems.atlassian.net/browse/HPCC-15004#icft=HPCC-15004, which prevents you turning off Preserve Compression.
But for the purposes of this bug, that is not relevant.

Definitely related to DFU copy + source files that are compressed.

It seems to be losing the compression flag 'blockCompressed=1'.
Without it, it's reading the compressed parts as uncompressed and reading nonsensical noise as a result (and ultimately hitting the assert seen).

For the original file reported, the source file has been deleted/no longer exists, which is a pity.

For the second example, "~thor_data400::bipv2_empid_platform::init::20160112" and the DFU copy "~thor_data400::bipv2_empid_platform::init::20160112copy", both copies still exist and not only is the blockCompressed flag missing, there are other oddities in the meta data for the copy versus the original.

Original attributes:

Copy attributes:

Note the missing blockCompressed="1" in the copy + the addition of erroneous footerLength="0" and headerLength="0"
checkSum is also missing.

I forgot to provide the Rec record structure. Add it below:
Rec:=RECORD
unsigned6 rcid;
string2 source;
unsigned6 empid;
unsigned6 seleid;
unsigned6 orgid;
unsigned6 ultid;
string50 contact_job_title_derived;
string10 prim_range;
string28 prim_name;
string5 zip;
string4 zip4;
string20 fname;
string20 lname;
string10 contact_phone;
unsigned6 contact_did;
string9 contact_ssn;
string120 company_name;
string8 sec_range;
string25 v_city_name;
string2 st;
string2 company_inc_state;
string32 company_charter_number;
string9 active_duns_number;
string9 hist_duns_number;
string30 active_domestic_corp_key;
string30 hist_domestic_corp_key;
string30 foreign_corp_key;
string30 unk_corp_key;
string9 company_fein;
string10 cnp_btype;
string250 cnp_name;
string50 company_name_type_derived;
unsigned6 company_bdid;
unsigned3 nodes_total;
unsigned4 dt_first_seen;
unsigned4 dt_last_seen;
string1 iscorp;
string120 cname_devanitize;
string1 iscorpenhanced;
END;