Scandinavian Ä Ö Å letters is shown wrongly after 2.0.19 -> 2.1.3

[Jarppi]

Is there a way to fix issue that Scaninavian letters Ä Ö Å is shown wrongly after 2.0.19 -> 2.1.3
There was some issues when upgrade was made from 2.0.19 to 2.1.3 but I cannot specify what was happened.
It looks that issue is more on php database side?
Forum works ok after upgrade but this letter issue is a bummer.
Old messages and other old text on forum have this issue, but new messages shows correctly letters.
ö is ö, ä is ä

Example:
This: Onko tiedossa hyviä bileitä? Linkitä ne kalenteriimme!
Should be: Onko tiedossa hyviä bileitä? Linkitä ne kalenteriimme!

What I have tried so far to fix this:
-check that my php database is utf8_general_ci
-delete Finnish language and reinstall, no help, and this same letter issue is if I choose English
-Convert HTML-entities to UTF-8 characters via Maintenance-> Database

http://finnbikers.fi/foorumi/index.php

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

@shawnb61 @Sesquipedalian I think you two know much more about this side of things than I do, hence this was redirected here from the Finnish board.

[Jarppi]

I got idea that to export sql database and find-> replace all the wrong letters directly to sql file.
And then import that back to database after replacing letters.
Would that harm somehow database?

[live627]

what was the character set before you upgraded? Did you have the upgrade create a copy with backup_ prefix?

You could try your ideas and import back into a test install (NOT your live forum!)

[Sesquipedalian]

If new posts show the correct Unicode characters, then the problem is not with any of the current SMF settings. Instead, something unexpected happened during the upgrade.

I suspect that there was some inconsistency in the character encoding of the database tables and columns.

If you can restore the backup data as live627 has suggested, try running the Covert to UTF-8 task in SMF 2.0.17 before you upgrade to 2.1.3. That should fix whatever inconsistencies there are in the data tables.

[Sesquipedalian]

I got idea that to export sql database and find-> replace all the wrong letters directly to sql file.
And then import that back to database after replacing letters.
Would that harm somehow database?

You could try that, but you would need to be very careful and very thorough. It would be easy to miss something or to make mistakes.

[Jarppi]

Thanks for reply and support.
I have done manually database edit find/replace to correct letters.
I think all looks ok now and forum is open back to service.
So case can be closed.