Posting anything in Chinese results in a question mark for each character typed

[ssnickerer]

My language is set to English-Utf8 on the Default Modern theme, and my Chinese-Simp/Trad-Utf8 theme even works fine, but anything I post in Chinese results in an army of question marks. Example here. How can I rectify this? It's probably something obvious, and it's probably all over Google, but I haven't been able to find anything with the queries I put in.... Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

[metallica48423]

Do you have support for those languages enabled on your computer?

See attachment

[ssnickerer]

Yes, I do. I go on many Chinese websites on a daily basis with no problem at all.

Also, because the theme can display its own Chinese, I don't think it's an issue on my computer.

For an example of what I'm talking about, please visit this page. Everything in a string of question marks (including some that have been transformed into emoticons) was entered as Chinese.

[metallica48423]

hmm... these are shots in the dark... is your database converted to utf8?

http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?topic=865
^convert to utf8

have you used the 'convert html entities to utf8' from forum maintenance?

Let me know

[ssnickerer]

Thanks for the suggestion! I have just run the 'Convert HTML-entities to UTF-8 characters' command in Forum Maintenance, though, and it has not alleviated the problem.

[metallica48423]

I'm gonna have to say i'm completely stumped on this then. 

Maybe someone else who knows more than I do can pitch in

Sorry

[ssnickerer]

That's okay, thanks for trying to help! :-)

[AngelSL]

Convert the database and data to UTF-8? Have you done it?

[ssnickerer]

If that means running the 'Convert HTML-entities to UTF-8 characters' command, then yes, I have just done it, with no difference in results.

[Fiery]

Hello,

Re-download and overwrite (the current) Chinese UTF8 language pack http://www.simplemachines.org/download/?languages;lang=chinese-simplified

Does that help?

[ssnickerer]

Nothing in this thread so far has worked, unfortunately! This is the forum I'm having trouble with.

I have just changed the collation of my SQL table from latin1_swedish_ci to utf8_general_ci. Typing more Chinese just results in more question marks.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

EDIT: If it helps at all, I initially installed the board with cPanel's Fantastico.

[Dannii]

Check all the columns in your database too. What language files you have is irrelevant.

[ssnickerer]

Check all the columns in your database too. What language files you have is irrelevant.

So I think I followed you. In phpMyAdmin, it seems to show that the full database is in utf8_general_ci, but the 41 table entries are all still in latin1_swedish_ci. I'm a real newbie at this, and I don't know the slightest thing of what I'm doing in phpMyAdmin. Does anyone have any instructions or commands I could issue to convert all the taables to utf8_general_ci?

Thanks!!

[metallica48423]

go into phpmyadmin, select your database on the left, click 'operations', see the 'collation' part?

Try that.

If not, i'll have to grab someone who knows more about utf8

[ssnickerer]

go into phpmyadmin, select your database on the left, click 'operations', see the 'collation' part?

Try that.

If not, i'll have to grab someone who knows more about utf8

Thanks for the reply, metallica48423, but that's exactly what I did. The problem seems to be, however, that while the database is in utf8, the tables themselves are still in swedish!

[Something like that]

go into phpmyadmin, select your database on the left, click 'operations', see the 'collation' part?

Try that.

If not, i'll have to grab someone who knows more about utf8

Thanks for the reply, metallica48423, but that's exactly what I did. The problem seems to be, however, that while the database is in utf8, the tables themselves are still in swedish!

One at a time, select the table in the left hand frame. When the table loads in the right, select Operations. You can then select the collation for the table. Click Go. Repeat for the next table.

[metallica48423]

couldn't you do them all with a sql query?

[Something like that]

I just realized that you'll have to do that with every column, too, not just table!

Yeah, and SQL query would make more sense...

I'll figure one out... I've been wanting to do the conversion myself.

[Something like that]

I tried for about 2 hours to write a query that would convert all the tables in the database, but that proved impossible. So here is a series of statements that will convert all the columns in all the tables in a default install of SMF 1.1.x

Code Select Expand

ALTER TABLE smf_attachments CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_ban_groups CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_ban_items CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_board_permissions CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_boards CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_calendar CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_calendar_holidays CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_categories CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_collapsed_categories CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_actions CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_activity CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_banned CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_boards CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_errors CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_floodcontrol CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_karma CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_mark_read CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_notify CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_online CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_polls CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_search_messages CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_search_results CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_search_subjects CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_search_topics CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_log_topics CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_membergroups CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_members CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_message_icons CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_messages CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_moderators CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_package_servers CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_permissions CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_personal_messages CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_pm_recipients CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_poll_choices CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_polls CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_sessions CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_settings CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_smileys CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_themes CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE smf_topics CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;


Enjoy!

[ssnickerer]

Thank you so much, Phalloidium!! But I'm having a little trouble understanding. So I can't copy/paste that into the query box for my SMF database, right? So what exactly do I do? Newbie here, sorry! =D