UTF-8 problems in Mediawiki

Hi,
my Mediawiki 1.7 can't display any UTF-8 characters. My
MySQL server
defaults to UTF-8 and my tables usually have collation
latin1_bin. This
is exactly how things were set up when I installed
Mediawiki. However,
my interwiki links did not work until I changed the
collation of
column iw_prefix to latin1_swedish_ci. Even now I cannot use
any UTF-8
characters in Mediawiki. I have another install that runs
most columns
(not all) on latin1_swedish_ci and there UTF-8 seems to work
fine. I'm
now wondering if I have to manually change my columns on the
non-working install to latin1_swedish_ci or if there is also
a way of
getting this to work with the latin1_bin columns.

Any hints on this?

Cheers,
Christian
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Christian Lerrahn wrote:
> 
> my Mediawiki 1.7 can't display any UTF-8 characters. My
MySQL server
> defaults to UTF-8 and my tables usually have collation
latin1_bin. This
> is exactly how things were set up when I installed
Mediawiki. However,
> my interwiki links did not work until I changed the
collation of
> column iw_prefix to latin1_swedish_ci. Even now I
cannot use any UTF-8
> characters in Mediawiki. I have another install that
runs most columns
> (not all) on latin1_swedish_ci and there UTF-8 seems to
work fine. I'm
> now wondering if I have to manually change my columns
on the
> non-working install to latin1_swedish_ci or if there is
also a way of
> getting this to work with the latin1_bin columns.
> 
> Any hints on this?

I'm having the same problem, or something very similar. I
recently upgraded
a server using latin1_bin from 1.4.12 to 1.5.8 to update the
database, then
to 1.8.2. Everything is running now except none of the
interwiki links work.
I didn't have any success changing the mw_interwiki table to
latin1_swedish_ci, though it's possible I'm not doing it
correctly. My
knowledge of MySQL is admittedly not very deep.

I can see through the archives that you've had this problem
for several
months with no reply, unfortunately.

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-Mediawiki-tf2775307.html#a8152321
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Christian Lerrahn wrote:
> 
> my Mediawiki 1.7 can't display any UTF-8 characters. My
MySQL server
> defaults to UTF-8 and my tables usually have collation
latin1_bin. This
> is exactly how things were set up when I installed
Mediawiki. However,
> my interwiki links did not work until I changed the
collation of
> column iw_prefix to latin1_swedish_ci. Even now I
cannot use any UTF-8
> characters in Mediawiki. I have another install that
runs most columns
> (not all) on latin1_swedish_ci and there UTF-8 seems to
work fine. I'm
> now wondering if I have to manually change my columns
on the
> non-working install to latin1_swedish_ci or if there is
also a way of
> getting this to work with the latin1_bin columns.
> 

Did some more digging on this. The "stock" answer
I keep seeing in my
searches is that you should keep the database in latin1. But
that doesn't
seem to work any longer since we're having problems with
latin1 interwiki
link tables.

After reading your solution, I went in and manually changed
collation of the
mw_interwiki table from 'latin1_bin' to 'utf8_general_ci'
and it appeared to
work (interwiki links started working). However, I have no
idea what other
problems this might cause. Doing that might not let me
re-import a database
dump correctly. There's currently no unicode characters
currently in our
interwiki table though, so maybe it doesn't matter. The
collation of my
database is also set to utf_general_ci, with all tables
other than
mw_interwiki set to latin1_bin.

I did find this 
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki?v
iew=rev&revision=17549 recent
work  by Brion in SVN, and I wonder if it will be of
assistance when 1.9 is
released. Perhaps he can comment on that.


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-Mediawiki-tf2775307.html#a8175411
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