What is the header of your original “23_ca.hdr” file? I suspect there is something in the header that is getting passed down to evalglare, which it doesn’t like.
Also, your first set of commands can be replaced by:
rcrop 45 944 3580 3580 23_ca.hdr | pfilt -1 -x 1000 -y 1000 | getinfo -r "VIEW= -vta -vv 186 -vh 186" > 23_cac.hdr
The new getinfo -r option replaces a previous setting with a new one. To remove any indented EXPOSURE= lines, you might have to modify the final command, like so:
rcrop 45 944 3580 3580 23_ca.hdr | pfilt -1 -x 1000 -y 1000 | getinfo -r " EXPOSURE=" "VIEW= -vta -vv 186 -vh 186" > 23_cac.hdr
This command should elide any tabbed-in exposure lines from the original header. (The leading space is important.)
Cheers,
-Greg
P.S. The reason your pcompos command works is that the -h option removes all previous headers from the output.