So frustrating! I migrated a new site (WordPress 3.5.1) from a smaller server to a business server and tried all of the solutions that I could find, including 2 obsolete plugins and some ‘ALTER’ table field queries found HERE . What a failure, since it’s been 12 years since a SQL course.
None of the solutions worked. Finally, I created a new page whose text included several apostrophes and double spaces between sentences, and discovered that the weird characters were not generated on a new page. Then, I tried once again to edit a page, exported in the migration, using the ‘text’ tab (in the WP editor) and it looked fine in editing but still displayed the weird characters in live view.
Finally, I edited that same pre-migration page using the ‘visual’ tab in the editor, and voila, it finally cleaned it up. So, if you’re fortunate enough to have a smaller site, this may work.
I’m hoping that someone can come up with a plugin for v. 3.5.1.
