Ok... I am defeated I don't know what else to try...

Do you guys have any experience with ansible vault? I have my SSH password stored on a vault. It's referenced in my host file like this:
-----START SNIPPET-----
[LCL:vars]
ansible_ssh_pass='{default_pass}'

[LCL]
myhost ansible_user=my username
-----END SNIPPET-----

default_pass is stored as a yaml variable in passed.yml that I supply using --extra-vars '@passwd.yml'

When I enter my vault password I get an exception 'non hexadecimal digit found'.

The password is right for the vault, the vault file is in PWD .... I cannot find anything helpful.

Any ideas?