Problem solved folks! Thanks to Andreas Kiel who helped me resolve the issue.
Here’s a transition in the XML
"<transition name="Cross Dissolve" offset="0s" duration="24024/24000s">
<filter-video ref="r486" name="Cross Dissolve"/>
<filter-audio ref="r487" name="Audio Crossfade"/>
<spine lane="1" offset="86423337/24000s"/>
</transition>"
Once every instance (there were two) of lines inside a transition that looked like “” was removed (because the transition XML key should not have a spine key) the XML imported without issue.
Tangier