Certain spent P2PKH outputs give error: Non-canonical DER signature

Question

Certain rare spent P2PKH outputs give error: Non-canonical DER signature when I try to verify the spent output using both btcdeb (version 5.0.24) and bitcoinconsensus (version 0.20.2, using Rust bindings).

Here is a screen grab of btcdeb failure on the 0th input of the transaction a618dc10b8a1f9d9a1469b3bb84fc17da86df2d51c27e2aa16fa130953840735. The command to reproduce is:

$ btcdeb --tx=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 --txin=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

Lib bitcoinconsensus gives SCRIPT_ERR_SIG_DER.

My question is, how these transactions ended up being put into the old blocks?

Answer 1

The requirement for canonical DER signatures was only added in the BIP66 softfork in 2015.

Before that time, such non-canonical signatures were legal, and your transaction predates the BIP66 activation.