Woohoo! I think I've found it! I'm still testing a few things but so far it seems to be working.

I noticed that the variable containing the UTF chars was decoded using utf8::decode() without first checking it with utf8::is_utf8(). It turns out that it was already decode()ed, so I was in fact double decode()ing. This seems to just remove the utf8 attribute and somehow put it in a very wierd sometimes UTF8/sometimes not UTF8 state.

Anyway, I've corrected this now and it seems to be working.

What *should* happen to a double decode()ed string? I would have thought that nothing would happen, but clearly that's not the case. I guess this is just a usage error.

Any ideas why a double decode()ed string works fine where prepare()ed, but not when sent as an execute() argument?

Cheers guys. I really appreciate your masterful help!

MattLG