Could it be your OSs language setting causing the problem in the dev and and prod environment?
Also see this article below there are a few points(if applicable) from the web server side you should check to how they are set as if they are different may be a source as to why your console is "mysteriously" changing formats somehow. Its not exactly your issue but may give you some ideas as to where to check some things
httpd.conf:
AddCharset UTF-8 .utf8
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
php.ini
default_charset = "utf-8"
my.cnf
character-set-server=utf8
default-collation=utf8_unicode_ci
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2006/01/turning_mysql_data_in_latin1_t.html
good luck.
Also see this article below there are a few points(if applicable) from the web server side you should check to how they are set as if they are different may be a source as to why your console is "mysteriously" changing formats somehow. Its not exactly your issue but may give you some ideas as to where to check some things
httpd.conf:
AddCharset UTF-8 .utf8
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
php.ini
default_charset = "utf-8"
my.cnf
character-set-server=utf8
default-collation=utf8_unicode_ci
http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2006/01/turning_mysql_data_in_latin1_t.html
good luck.