first kernel instruction gives illegal character in notebook

Hello,

I'm trying to setup a java101 class using your kernel. It seems to kinda work, except that I have the following issue:

Upon restarting the kernel, the execution of the first instruction always return an illegal character error with some binary garbage. The second execution, however works as expected, see the attached screenshot
image

I can't reproduce the issue with a "jupyterlab console" or with a "terminal jupyter console", just with notebooks.

Installation info:

cbc186831b36ed557e7bc48b1cfcdc1e ijava-1.1.1.jar
4.4.0 jupyter --version
0.9.2 jupyterhub --version
10.0.2 javac -version
10.0.2 java -version
16.04 Ubuntu

System is installed with the following ansible playbook: https://github.com/nherbaut/jupyterhub-deploy-teaching

Thanks!