beamer and inputenc (utf8x) issue

[Walter Cazzola]

Dear TeX-perts,
I'm using TeX live 2022 with a full and up-to-date installation on a linux
box.

Recently the combination between beamer and inputenc gives an error

   ! Argument of � has an extra }.
   <inserted text>
                 \par
   l.5 \begin{document}

   ?
   Runaway argument?
   ! Paragraph ended before � was complete.
   <to be read again>
                    \par
   l.5 \begin{document}

and pdflatex gives up on generating  the output.

This is a minimal example showing the issue:

\documentclass[a4paper]{beamer}

\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}

\begin{document}

\end{document}

The example is so minimal than this sounds as a bug to me but maybe I'm still
doing something wrong. Attached you have the corresponding log file.

I know that the usage of utf8x is discouraged but this seems a bug that to
some extends could impede its use also when is the only option.

Walter

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