I've discovered by accident that start-process crashes when a process started with the -RedirectStandardOutput outputs non-Latin characters.
Example python script:
print("Begin")
print("香港")
print("End")
PS command:
start-process python -argumentlist "debug.py" -RedirectStandardOutput debug.txt
The debug.txt contains only Begin line and nothing else. Python script by itself works fine. Obviously it is a UTF-8 encoding issue, and there are ways to mitigate this.
I am looking for a higher-level workaround which does not involve modifying the existing PS code, but rather wrapping it in another "driver" script.
System info:
python 3.12.8
$PSVersionTable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 5.1.26100.2161
PSEdition Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion 10.0.26100.2161
CLRVersion 4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion 3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
The simplest working solution was pointed out by @iRon and it is to set the Region > Administrative > Language for non-Unicode programs > Change system locale > Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support as described in https://stackoverflow.com/a/57134096/1701026.
UPDATE:
It was rightfully pointed out that this solution might cause many unwanted side-effects, so it has to be evaluated carefully for every case.