End users can't save settings from the sidebar

I applied the patch at #20 which didn't address the problem (although maybe another cause for that), and flags following error running in PHP 8.1

Deprecated function: strlen(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in Drupal\civiccookiecontrol\CCCConfig\AbstractCCCConfig->loadTextObject() (line 232 of /civicccookiecontrol/src/CCCConfig/AbstractCCCConfig.php).

Removing the patch removes the error.

This is the problem line:

 $this->config['text'] = array_filter($this->config['text'], 'strlen');

Tried wrapping an If statement around it to test that $this->config['text'] is not null or set but that didn't seem to work