diff --git a/applets/pbot-vm/guest/lib/Languages/_default.pm b/applets/pbot-vm/guest/lib/Languages/_default.pm
index cdb2eaaf..c54bc0af 100755
--- a/applets/pbot-vm/guest/lib/Languages/_default.pm
+++ b/applets/pbot-vm/guest/lib/Languages/_default.pm
@@ -9,9 +9,9 @@ use warnings;
 use strict;
 
 use IPC::Run qw/run timeout/;
+use Encode;
 
 use Data::Dumper;
-
 $Data::Dumper::Terse    = 1;
 $Data::Dumper::Sortkeys = 1;
 $Data::Dumper::Useqq    = 1;
diff --git a/applets/pbot-vm/host/lib/Languages/_default.pm b/applets/pbot-vm/host/lib/Languages/_default.pm
index 18c31608..c870d826 100755
--- a/applets/pbot-vm/host/lib/Languages/_default.pm
+++ b/applets/pbot-vm/host/lib/Languages/_default.pm
@@ -309,14 +309,14 @@ sub execute {
     my $result = "";
     my $got_result = 0;
 
-    while (my $line = <$output>) {
-        utf8::decode($line);
+    while (my $line = decode('UTF-8', <$output>)) {
         $line =~ s/[\r\n]+$//;
         last if $line =~ /^result:end$/;
 
         if ($line =~ /^result:/) {
             $line =~ s/^result://;
 
+            $line = encode('UTF-8', $line);
             my $octets = decode('UTF-8', $line, sub { sprintf '\\\\x%02X', shift });
             $line = encode('UTF-8', $octets, Encode::FB_CROAK);
 
diff --git a/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm b/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm
index d5c95655..401562d7 100644
--- a/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm
+++ b/lib/PBot/VERSION.pm
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ use PBot::Imports;
 # These are set by the /misc/update_version script
 use constant {
     BUILD_NAME     => "PBot",
-    BUILD_REVISION => 4627,
+    BUILD_REVISION => 4628,
     BUILD_DATE     => "2023-03-12",
 };