Efile rejected twice due to X0000-029 - A binary attachment submitted in the PDF format must begin with the file header "%PDF-".

[a churned user]

State return was also rejected because of the errors on federal return.

[a churned user]

I tried to locate the pdf files and delete and upload again. It didn't solve the issue and was rejected again. The problem is from turbotax it's not telling me which files are problematic. I contacted turbotax support team and they don't have a clue on how to find the problematic docs nor how to resolve the issue. The experience overall of using turbotax was bad and I'll not using them next year.

Regardless of the issue, the second representative (Denisha H.) even hang up my call when I tried to explain my suggestions to the turbotax team. Very unprofessional and wasn't knowledgeable about their own product. The case id is 47472 

5097 in case someone wants to look into the details.

[LenaH]

Reject Code X0000-029 generally means that a PDF document was uploaded, but it was truly not a PDF document. For example - if you uploaded a JPG that was saved with a .pdf file extension name. The document has to be a true PDF file. Please scan the document (rather than using a picture of the form), and reattach the document. You should then have no problems submitting the return. 

@churned user

@bach0423-gmail-c

[a churned user · Accepted solution]

Actually, the files I uploaded were true PDF and were able to be opened by Adobe reader. The issue was interesting. What's causing the error was exactly like the error code described: the binary header was not started with "%PDF". Open the pdf in latest adobe, then save the files as pdf solved the problem.

For those who are interested in checking a file's header on Linux or Mac, open terminal and use "hexdump -C {your file name} | head -n 100". This command will show the first 100 bytes of your file. In my case, my pdf files had some weird dummy header before the "%PDF-" and therefore caused the error from the IRS end. "od -bc {filename} | head" also does the job. 

Cheers

[tracema1106]

I'm having this issue now. So how did you find out which file was causing the error?

[sgentx]

I cannot even locate any of the files until I download a copy of my return.  Where are they located?