Problems on WP 2.2 with my language (Greek)

Some more info about the problem:

It seems that the problem is in the DB_COLLATE setting

I made a testing fresh new insall of WP 2.2 in another server of mine with same configurations (MySQL5 etc) using:

define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ‘utf8_unicode_ci’);

in wp-config.php file.

Everything is working ok in this testing blog, and greek characters appear just fine.

Then i made an upgrade to my main blog using the above setting but unfortunately the problem with the unreadable characters appeared again.

I assume that something is happening when a dbase upgrades from 2.13 to 2.2

PLEASE HELP

I decided to fresh install WP 2.2 to my server.

Now i can write posts, categories, comments and links in Greek but all my plugins (example: polls, ratings etc) show the ugly unreadable characters.

Message for the developers: Please advise how to treat the new ‘db_collate’ attribute in 2.2 so we will be able to correct plugins if we write posts in languages with no latin characters

Thank you in advance

I had the same problem. All my Norwegian characters were showing up really weirdly after the upgrade, and I had to do a lot of update wp_posts set post_content = replace(post_content,'??','?'); to get things working again. I am waiting for version 2.2.1 before upgrading my other blogs…

I found this article on the Wiki: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Converting_Database_Character_Sets, but it looks unfinished and certainly not something that should be necessary when upgrading to 2.2.

Thanks for the reply.

After a long day of searching i found a 3 step solution ??
—-
1. From phpmyAdmin i went to dbase properties and changed the default “MySQL connection collation” attribute to “utf8_unicode_ci”

2. I made a fresh new install of WP 2.2 on my server

3. in “wp-config.php” file i wrote:

define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ‘utf8_unicode_ci’);
—-

Now all Greek characters in posts, comments, categories names and links are readable and my old plugins work OK.

So, in general conclusion i think the solution is:
settings of the dbase “MySQL connection collation” attribute = exactly the same as in “wp-config.php” file

I am not sure about the above but it works for me ??

Thanks Animator.

Did your solution work to Fix what appeared broken on your blog? i.e. it repaired the problem and you keep on blogging with the 2.2 you upgraded earlier that had errors.

Or you made this change, and then re-imported the blog (or re-upgraded)? i.e. starting over

For me, this solution isn’t working. I changed those settings in phpmyAdmin and wp-config.php, so I now have utf8/utf8_romanian_ci. There are some romanian characters I can see, but other that are still unreadable.

I also made these changes and am having similar problems, as outlined here:

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/120562?replies=2

Our Spanish posts and page went awry. Help!
Here’s a sample, though I am pretty sure you all know what I mean.
https://bedbugger.com/2007/03/21/bedbugger-en-espanol-%c2%bfpiensa-que-tiene-chinches-que-hacer-y-que-no-hacer/

That link doesn’t work.

Was it an automatic upgrade by fantastico?

If not, did you change anything in your wp-config file?

EDIT. OK, you corrected the link…

It was an auto upgrade by fantastico. and others seem to be in the same boat with every other non-english character set…\

i didn’t change anything in the config file.

thanks!

Fantastico DID CHANGE!

Go and delete these two lines in the config file:

define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

Ahhhhhhhh, thanks!
(Somehow I thought others above were adding these lines… I could not figure any of it out. Thanks Moshu!!!)

Sorry I’m a bit confused.
What config file are you talking about moshu?

I don’t know anything since it was my brother that upgraded without telling me =(

[Edit]
Don’t worry! I found it! =)
I’m so glad I didn’t have to retype anything!!! Thanksss!!

I think I found the real problem. It’s in fact not a problem of WordPress but a problem of the database. Just look at your posts with phpMyAdmin and manually set the browser’s character set to ISO. You will then notice that all special characters don’t consist of two (or more) characters but of four (or more)! So, they are double-encoded.

For example “st?ndig” becomes “st?¤ndig”, which becomes “st???¤ndig”.

? -> ?¤

? -> ??
¤ -> ?¤

THANKS MOSHU!

I upgraded 2 WP sites to 2.2 by hand with no issue and then I upgraded one using Fantastico. This Fantastico maintained English character site suddenly had hundreds/thousands of odd characters representing whitespace, spaces, page breaks and punctuation.

Per the suggestion here I commented these two lines out of wp-config.php. Lines 13 & 14

define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);

These lines were NOT present in my backup copies of the file. Commenting them out instantly solved the issue, in the short term, but what about the future and UTF and all that?