this is just a complete shot in the dark, but might this decoding failure have something to do with $isutf()'s current inability to detect invalid UTF-8:

Code:
//echo -a $isutf($chr(0221) $+ $chr(0181) $+ $chr(0240) $+ 111)


= 2, whereas we would expect it to = 0

"The only excuse for making a useless script is that one admires it intensely" - Oscar Wilde