Bad Characters After a MySQL WordPress Migration

scottalanmiller

I just did a database migration. Leaving MySQL using mysqldump to dump out the database. I'm moving from a self hosting CentOS 6 system and going to A Small Orange. I am importing the database into MariaDB (what ASO uses) using PHPMyAdmin via cPanel. Everything goes fine and the whole site fires up instantly once migrated. No issues.

Here is the one thing that has gotten me. There are extra characters all over the place. This has to be something to do with the character encoding from the database dumps is all that I can guess. But I am not sure what change to make to fix it.

Here is an example: "up today.Â" That last character should not be there. But it is displayed when looking at the WordPress site.

scottalanmiller

I should mention that the system exporting is using Latin1.

thanksajdotcom

@scottalanmiller said:

I just did a database migration. Leaving MySQL using mysqldump to dump out the database. I'm moving from a self hosting CentOS 6 system and going to A Small Orange. I am importing the database into MariaDB (what ASO uses) using PHPMyAdmin via cPanel. Everything goes fine and the whole site fires up instantly once migrated. No issues.

Here is the one thing that has gotten me. There are extra characters all over the place. This has to be something to do with the character encoding from the database dumps is all that I can guess. But I am not sure what change to make to fix it.

Here is an example: "up today.Â" That last character should not be there. But it is displayed when looking at the WordPress site.

Can you get CLI access to the server?

mysql -u your_username --password=your_password database_name < /path/to/dump.sql

Make sure your SQL permissions match the source and your username and password match.

Danp

Maybe this?

scottalanmiller

The import is working fine. It's the character encoding that seems to be catching me.

I've tried importing as UTF-8 and as Latin1 and both do the same thing.

thanksajdotcom

Font issue maybe?

thanksajdotcom

When printers print funky characters, it's always because the driver can't read the font being used. Could this be something similar?

scottalanmiller

@Danp said:

Maybe this?

Looks like that will do it. That fits what I felt that the issue was and what I am seeing. Will look into that thoroughly after dinner.

scottalanmiller

@thanksajdotcom said:

Font issue maybe?

Not likely. Font has not changed.

scottalanmiller

@Danp said:

Maybe this?

BOOM! Fixed!!

Thanks. Best Answer for you!

tonyshowoff

Using anything but UTF-8 is a crime!

Danp

@scottalanmiller Glad you were able to get it working correctly!

JaredBusch

@tonyshowoff said:

Using anything but UTF-8 is a crime!

True, and even old WP installs used it without the actually making sure the DB was configured that way. So odd.

tonyshowoff

@JaredBusch said:

@tonyshowoff said:

Using anything but UTF-8 is a crime!

True, and even old WP installs used it without the actually making sure the DB was configured that way. So odd.

That kind of ineptitude seems par for the course for WordPress. UTF-8 issues can't be blamed just on them though, consider the absolutely bizarre issue of utf8 vs utf8mb4 for MySQL, why the hell wasn't it implemented completely the first time?