reconciled transaction without a reconciled date?

[Jack]

When testing the new "reconciled date" as a ledger sort item, I had a  
transaction from 2018 at the end of the list.  Finding that transaction  
in the file, I get:

<TRANSACTION id="T000000000000016243" postdate="2018-08-06" memo=""  
entrydate="2018-08-14" commodity="USD">
   <SPLITS>
     <SPLIT id="S0001" payee="" reconciledate="2018-08-31" action=""  
reconcileflag="2" value="-8000/1" shares="-8000/1" price="1/1" memo=""  
account="A000150" number="" bankid="ID 20180806AF190321500016194-1"/>
     <SPLIT id="S0002" payee="" reconciledate="" action=""  
reconcileflag="2" value="8000/1" shares="8000/1" price="1/1" memo=""  
account="A000370" number="" bankid="ID D2018218T1953469"/>
   </SPLITS>
</TRANSACTION>

I have no idea how a transaction/split could get reconciled without a  
reconciledate being set.  I also have no idea how to fix it without  
manually editing my data file.  I suppose I could change the state from  
R to not-reconciled to C to R, but even if that does reset the  
reconciledate to today, it would be wrong, and sort badly using the new  
sort criteria.

Why do I always seem to find these anomalies?

Jack