diff -ur ansible-2.9.12.orig/lib/ansible/modules/system/cron.py ansible-2.9.12/lib/ansible/modules/system/cron.py
--- ansible-2.9.12.orig/lib/ansible/modules/system/cron.py	2020-08-11 05:22:08.000000000 +0200
+++ ansible-2.9.12/lib/ansible/modules/system/cron.py	2020-08-12 14:42:34.519669206 +0200
@@ -258,6 +258,7 @@
             try:
                 f = open(self.b_cron_file, 'rb')
                 self.n_existing = to_native(f.read(), errors='surrogate_or_strict')
+                self.lines = self.n_existing.splitlines()
                 f.close()
             except IOError:
                 # cron file does not exist