phpMyAdmin won't display or insert Unicode characters properly into database

Question

I'm using phpMyAdmin version 4.4.4 with MySQL 5.6 (charset is set to UTF-8 Unicode). The table in question has the collation set to utf8-general-ci and all fields are also set to utf8-general-ci collation as well. My php.ini file has default_charset = "UTF-8".

Despite all the UTF-8 settings for all three applications, unicode characters appear garbled when viewing a table within phpMyAdmin. So, instead of seeing ...

Søren

... in phpMyAdmin I see ...

SÃ¸ren

Even though it displays garbled in phpMyAdmin, it displays correctly on the website. The only problem is with phpMyAdmin.

If I attempt to Insert a new record using phpMyAdmin and enter Søren in a text field, it displays like this within phpMyAdmin...

Søren

Which looks correct there, but, on the web page, it displays like this...

S�ren

The ø character is replaced with a question mark inside a black diamond instead of displaying the proper unicode character on the website.

What the heck is going on? How do I make phpMyAdmin display and insert the unicode characters properly into the table without mangling them? Thanks!

have you tried this? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4777900/how-to-display-utf-8-characters-in-phpmyadmin — Fabricator, May 26 '15 at 23:11
@Fabricator Are you referring to the selected answer? I have no file called /libraries/dbi/mysqli.dbi.lib.php in my phpMyAdmin install. — Monty, May 26 '15 at 23:19

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 27 '15 at 07:15

My php.ini file has default_charset = "UTF-8".

That only affects the charset used for some PHP built-in functions like htmlentities.

MySQL uses its own charset to decode stuff you send it. This can be set using $mysqli->set_charset('utf8') for mysqli, or mysql_set_charset('utf8') for the deprecated mysql module, or using charset=utf8 in the connection string in PDO.

phpMyAdmin won't display or insert Unicode characters properly into database

1 Answers1