use this code with mb_convert_encoding, you can json_encode some corrupt UTF-8 chars
function safe_json_encode($value, $options = 0, $depth = 512) {
$encoded = json_encode($value, $options, $depth);
if ($encoded === false && $value && json_last_error() == JSON_ERROR_UTF8) {
$encoded = json_encode(utf8ize($value), $options, $depth);
}
return $encoded;
}
function utf8ize($mixed) {
if (is_array($mixed)) {
foreach ($mixed as $key => $value) {
$mixed[$key] = utf8ize($value);
}
} elseif (is_string($mixed)) {
return mb_convert_encoding($mixed, "UTF-8", "UTF-8");
}
return $mixed;
}