Selenium ChromeDriver freezes in the constructor on an Async operation

I'm using this code to create a new instance of Selenium ChromeDriver in C#:

internal static IWebDriver createMyDriver()
{
    var opt = new ChromeOptions();
    var userProfile = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.UserProfile);
        string dir = "--user-data-dir=" + userProfile  + "\\AppData\\Local\\Google\\Chrome\\User Data";
    opt.AddArgument(dir);
    var dri = new ChromeDriver(opt);
    return dri;
}

This code worked fine for years. However, now (on Selenium.WebDriver.ChromeDriver 136.0.7103.92) it freezes.

This is the stack trace:

[Async] System.Net.Http.HttpConnection.InitialFillAsync(bool)
[Async] System.Net.Http.HttpConnection.SendAsyncCore(System.Net.Http.HttpRequestMessage, bool, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
[Async] System.Net.Http.HttpConnectionPool.SendWithVersionDetectionAndRetryAsync(System.Net.Http.HttpRequestMessage, bool, bool, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
[Async] System.Net.Http.RedirectHandler.SendAsync(System.Net.Http.HttpRequestMessage, bool, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
[Async] System.Net.Http.HttpClient.SendAsync.__Core|83_0(System.Net.Http.HttpRequestMessage, System.Net.Http.HttpCompletionOption, System.Threading.CancellationTokenSource, bool, System.Threading.CancellationTokenSource, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
[Async] OpenQA.Selenium.Remote.HttpCommandExecutor.MakeHttpRequest(OpenQA.Selenium.Remote.HttpCommandExecutor.HttpRequestInfo)
[Async] OpenQA.Selenium.Remote.HttpCommandExecutor.ExecuteAsync(OpenQA.Selenium.Command)
[Async] OpenQA.Selenium.Remote.DriverServiceCommandExecutor.ExecuteAsync(OpenQA.Selenium.Command)
[Async] OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriver.ExecuteAsync(string, System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary<string, object>)
[Async] System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Run
System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(System.Threading.Tasks.Task)
[Waiting on Async Operation, double-click or press enter to view Async Call Stacks]
OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriver.Execute(string, System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary<string, object>)
OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriver.StartSession(OpenQA.Selenium.ICapabilities)
OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriver.WebDriver(OpenQA.Selenium.ICommandExecutor, OpenQA.Selenium.ICapabilities)
OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeDriver.ChromeDriver(OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeOptions)
MyApp.Program.createMyDriver()

It freezes on the last line line in WebDriver.Execute:

// source code from Selenium 
protected internal virtual Response Execute(string driverCommandToExecute, Dictionary<string, object>? parameters)
{
    string driverCommandToExecute2 = driverCommandToExecute;
    Dictionary<string, object> parameters2 = parameters;
    return Task.Run(() => ExecuteAsync(driverCommandToExecute2, parameters2)).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
}

The freeze only happens when providing the --user-data-dir parameter.