Update to 17.10.1 fails with encoding error ("\xE2" on US-ASCII (Encoding::InvalidByteSequenceError))

I am running gitlab in a debian 12 VM for years and today the update failed for the first time (reproducible):

Preparing to unpack .../gitlab-ee_17.10.1-ee.0_amd64.deb ...
/opt/gitlab/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/json-2.10.1/lib/json/common.rb:245:in `encode': "\xE2" on US-ASCII (Encoding::InvalidByteSequenceError)
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/json-2.10.1/lib/json/common.rb:245:in `parse'
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/json-2.10.1/lib/json/common.rb:245:in `parse'
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/omnibus-ctl/check_config.rb:39:in `block in load_file'
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/omnibus-ctl-0.6.12/lib/omnibus-ctl.rb:197:in `block in add_command'
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/omnibus-ctl-0.6.12/lib/omnibus-ctl.rb:747:in `run'
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/3.2.0/gems/omnibus-ctl-0.6.12/bin/omnibus-ctl:31:in `<top (required)>'
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/omnibus-ctl:25:in `load'
        from /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/omnibus-ctl:25:in `<main>'
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/gitlab-ee_17.10.1-ee.0_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 new gitlab-ee package pre-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/gitlab-ee_17.10.1-ee.0_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Any ideas on debugging this?