Я предлагаю вам использовать такую ​​оболочку json_encode:

function safe_json_encode($value, $options = 0, $depth = 512, $utfErrorFlag = false) {
    $encoded = json_encode($value, $options, $depth);
    switch (json_last_error()) {
        case JSON_ERROR_NONE:
            return $encoded;
        case JSON_ERROR_DEPTH:
            return 'Maximum stack depth exceeded'; // or trigger_error() or throw new Exception()
        case JSON_ERROR_STATE_MISMATCH:
            return 'Underflow or the modes mismatch'; // or trigger_error() or throw new Exception()
        case JSON_ERROR_CTRL_CHAR:
            return 'Unexpected control character found';
        case JSON_ERROR_SYNTAX:
            return 'Syntax error, malformed JSON'; // or trigger_error() or throw new Exception()
        case JSON_ERROR_UTF8:
            $clean = utf8ize($value);
            if ($utfErrorFlag) {
                return 'UTF8 encoding error'; // or trigger_error() or throw new Exception()
            }
            return safe_json_encode($clean, $options, $depth, true);
        default:
            return 'Unknown error'; // or trigger_error() or throw new Exception()
 
    }
}
 
function utf8ize($mixed) {
    if (is_array($mixed)) {
        foreach ($mixed as $key => $value) {
            $mixed[$key] = utf8ize($value);
        }
    } else if (is_string ($mixed)) {
        return utf8_encode($mixed);
    }
    return $mixed;
}