## TL;DR
Normalize the export encoding before extraction by converting it to plain UTF-8 text and replacing dash variants with a standard hyphen, then rerun action item extraction and compare the count against a manual read of one call section. Start with the Dialpad transcript export, the action items that failed to extract, and the characters around the failures in the raw file, work on one affected call, record, or run first, and prove the fix there before running the full set. Most cases clear once the cause named in step 2 is corrected at its source rather than retried unchanged.

```text
parser failed on Dialpad transcript export em dash encoding broke action item extraction
```

## Use this when
- You see this exact message or symptom: parser failed on Dialpad transcript export em dash encoding broke action item extraction
- One run, record, call, or object is affected and you can name it
- A retry without changing anything reproduces the same result

## Not for this skill when
- The system fails with a different message and none of the signals here appear
- Nothing has failed yet and you are doing first time setup or general planning
- Every service from this vendor is down for all users, which is a vendor outage to wait out first

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure once using the Dialpad transcript export, the action items that failed to extract, and the characters around the failures in the raw file, and record the time, the workspace or account, and the one item it names. Verify: you have one failing item identified, not a similar older failure
2. Inspect the raw bytes or characters at the extraction failures and whether they cluster around dashes and punctuation. Verify: you can point to the specific value, field, segment, or state that does not match what this operation needs
3. Apply the fix at that source: normalize the export encoding before extraction by converting it to plain UTF-8 text and replacing dash variants with a standard hyphen, then rerun action item extraction and compare the count against a manual read of one call section. Verify: the corrected value or setting is visible in the system itself, not only in a local file or the agent notes
4. Re-run the original operation on the single affected item first. Verify: that one item completes with no trace of the failure described above, and the cleaned export yields the action items from the sampled section with no broken characters in the output
5. Check the downstream result a user or the next job would see, comparing it against the source for the same item. Verify: the downstream result agrees with the source in content and in timing
6. Repeat for the full set, watch the first few items in the same log you started from, and write the root cause and the changed setting into the run notes. Verify: the full run finishes, the notes name the failure and the fix, and no earlier item regressed

## Variant phrasings
### parser failed on Dialpad transcript export em dash encoding broke action item extraction
The subject-first phrasing of the same failure. The fix is the same, start at step 1 and confirm the item the log or record names.
### Tool-first phrasing of this failure
The phrasing searchers use once they know which system raised it. It is the same underlying problem, not a separate bug.
### Why does this keep happening after a retry
The repeat-occurrence phrasing. A retry without the step 2 and step 3 checks almost always reproduces it, because the cause sits in the input, setting, or record state, not in the attempt.

Compatibility: Parsers handling Dialpad transcript exports, at current versions

## Why it happens
Exports written with one encoding and read with another turn dashes and punctuation into broken characters, and an extractor keyed on sentence patterns misses the action items sitting next to those broken characters.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_pkkKoIQJwnDeH_tIL6BV0g