Accented characters replaced with ? in SOAP XML request from n8n

Questions
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1

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a workflow in n8n that sends a SOAP XML request to an external API (Officetrack) to create tasks. The XML is dynamically generated using data from a CRM.

However, I’m running into an encoding issue: whenever the XML contains accented characters (like á, é, ç), they are being replaced by double question marks (??) in the final request.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

  • Added the UTF-8 declaration at the top of the XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  • Set the header in the HTTP Request node:
    • Name: Content-Type
    • Value: text/xml; charset=UTF-8
  • Manually tested with hardcoded strings (not coming from previous nodes), and the issue still happens.

This leads me to believe the problem is:

  • The way n8n sends the XML body (possibly wrong encoding at runtime);

Before applying a workaround like stripping accents using JavaScript, I’d like to confirm whether anyone else has faced this issue with character encoding in XML sent from n8n, and if there’s a proper solution.

Any advice or workaround you can recommend would be really appreciated!

Thanks a lot :folded_hands:

Information on your n8n setup

  • n8n version:1.91.3

  • Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app):n8n cloud