I can replicate the problem (but mind you, I'm no Tk-wiz either).  I.e. with the following simple test script 

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Tk;
use Tk::Balloon;

my $mw = MainWindow->new();
$mw->title('Simple example');

my $status  = $mw->Label(
                  -width => 20,
                  -relief => 'groove',
              )->pack();

my $balloon = $mw->Balloon(-statusbar => $status);

my $menu    = $mw->Optionmenu(
                  -textvariable => \my $res,
                  -options      => [qw(A B C D)],
              )->pack();

$balloon->attach(
    $menu,
    -msg => [qw(a b c d)],

    #-msg => 'foo',
    # this works, but you get the same msg for all menu entries, of co
+urse
);

MainLoop;

[download]

it seems that random strings from memory are being displayed as tooltip texts, which would also explain the "Malformed UTF-8 character" messages (because a random sequence of bytes is typically not well-formed UTF-8).

Apparently, the -msg => [...] doesn't work as advertised  (a simple scalar "works", but that of course doesn't make much sense for a menu...).

(Perl 5.8.4, $Tk::VERSION: 804.027 — I don't have anything more recent on this box)

In reply to Re^3: Balloon and menus options by almut
in thread Balloon and menus options by merrymonk

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