from talking with him in the help channel, turned out the problem was that $replace($regml(1),~,*) was altering the string. We don't know what is the purpose of \x28 or \x29, since \x28 is the character used by the Ctrl+I italic controlcode, and chr(29) is unknown. Also, this regex pattern doesn't anchor the end of the string, so even if the chr28 or chr29 were in the middle of the string, it would still capture the portion touching the "@". If the intent were to strip all control codes should change /g to /gS