strange characters / character encoding problem

I found some posts about utf8 and utf-8.

The characters are fine when I modify the charset in wp-config.php:

define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’) -> define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf-8’);

This is not the solution though, since it breaks some other functionality on the site. But it might help finding the solution.

I checked the tables in phpmyadmin. Some of them have MySQL Collation “latin1_general_ci”, other tables have MySQL Collation “utf8_general_ci”.

The advanced options of the installer are:
– MySQL Charset: utf8
– MySQL Collation: utf8_general_ci

Is this the problem? If yes, what is the solution?

BTW, I checked the option “Fix non-breaking space characters”, but that doesn’t help.

Hey Rfmcomposer,

International character sets are very difficult to get right it seems like event he forums for mySQL and PHP are never definitive about a real solution. When you change the wp-config.php at it works, but other items break, what other functionality is not working?

Thxs

I see strange characters appear at other places and an opt-in form disappears.

You might have to try and convert the database manually…
Be sure to always do this on a copy of your DB as its tough to know the outcome…

Thanks! With the link you provided I found the solution:

1) I removed all files and tables.
2) On the resulting empty database, I ran this SQL command:

ALTER DATABASE databasename CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci;

3) I ran installer.php

Now everything looks fine. No strange characters anymore ;).

Excellent! Thanks for posting your update…