flymake fails with "Wrong type argument: symbolp, (utf-8)"

I'm trying to get flymake to work, but when I run flymake-mode, I get the following error

switched OFF Flymake mode for buffer TdDisassemblerIde.cpp due to fatal status \
PROCERR, warning Failed to launch syntax check process 'make' with args 开发者_如何转开发(-s -C ./ \
CHK_SOURCES=TdDisassemblerIde_flymake.cpp SYNTAX_CHECK_MODE=1 check-syntax): Wrong type \    
argument: symbolp, (utf-8)

Any clues?

When I have a problem with flymake, I do
M-x set-variable flymake-log-level <RET> 3

And then run flymake again (M-x flymake-mode).

Then look in the *Messages* buffer for a useful error message.

The last time this happened to me, about an hour ago, my check-syntax target in the flymakefile lacked a source module; I had added a module but had forgotten to add it to the list of files that should be included in a flymake compilation. Modifying the makefile corrected it. (This was for C#, but setting flymake-log-level should work to get a diagnosis for you too.)

Answering my own question: the problem was that I had set process-coding-system-alist to contain the symbol utf-8, and apparently flymake does not like that. Setting process-coding-system-alist to nil solved the problem.