Homebrew "`split': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError)"

I tried to install

through

but it doesn't exist (yet) as a package (see comments). The tentative installation triggered an update of the existing

packages. From then on, each time I invoke a

command I get the following (even when issuing a

doctor

command): /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/PATH.rb:93:in `split': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError) from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/PATH.rb:93:in `block in parse' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/PATH.rb:93:in `each' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/PATH.rb:93:in `flat_map' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/PATH.rb:93:in `parse' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/PATH.rb:25:in `initialize' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:124:in `new' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/global.rb:124:in `' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:21:in `require_relative' from /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/brew.rb:21:in `'

$PATH

renders the following: ?/usr/libexec:/Users/profilename/.gem/ruby/2.6.0/bin:/Users/profilename/Library/Python/3.8/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin:~/.gem/ruby/2.6.0/bin:/usr/local/opt/ruby/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Library/Apple/usr/bin I stumbled on this stackoverflow thread , but unfortunately I failed to generalise the solution to my case. Kindly note that I have

installed (see this thread for installation procedure). Can someone please help me to solve this problem?