Hi David, thanks for the detailed info - I had a search back through the release notes, and I think this problem is fixed from 10.7.3 - see the “Persistency” section in the patch release notes and the associated Bugzilla report. That bug is for Fedora, but looks identical.
If an earlier version than 10.7.3 is absolutely required, then the changes to persistency/ascii can be back ported at the developer’s own risk.