Multidb 3.0.3 has a problem as it convert most users blog on my wordpress/buddpress multi site with characters with diamond shaped question marks in blog posts. When I checked, I see that users' blog posts' html source and even inside their dashboard does show utf-8 character encode. To solve the problem I have a test user to export the old posts, and delete site, recreate site and reimport posts to strip away diamond shaped question marks that littered the site. Can you tell me why is this happening when upgrade to db.php of multidb 3.0.3 from 3.0.2? Thanks..
Multidb 3.0.3 has a problem as it convert most users blog on my wordpress/buddpress multi site with characters with diamond shaped question marks in blog posts. When I checked, I see that users' blog posts' html source and even inside their dashboard does show utf-8 character encode. To solve the problem I have a test user to export the old posts, and delete site, recreate site and reimport posts to strip away diamond shaped question marks that littered the site. Can you tell me why is this happening when upgrade to db.php of multidb 3.0.3 from 3.0.2? Thanks..
Can you tell me why is this happening when upgrade to db.php of multidb 3.0.3 from 3.0.2
If you had no problems with 3.0.2 (relating to connections dropping or errors) then please move back to that version for now. - I've not come across any encoding issues on my installs, and to be honest, the code changed in the 3.0.3 upgrade doesn't touch the standard WP db functions so I'm not sure what is happening with your install.
Can you check in something like phpmyadmin to see if the encoding issue is only when the data is displayed in wp or is actually incorrect in the database as well.
Strangely, only very old blogs from users who created their blogs long before the users who created their blogs with wordpress 3.0.1 that got hit with diamond shaped question mark. I solve the problem by import such blogs from exports, and the imports fix the question marks problem. I guess the databases store the wrong encode, by exporting and then importing, the databases automatically fix the encode on the new imports? LOL, but that how I solve it, and I have not a clue why! It's like magic. I hope you know...
I confirm the issue with 3.0.3 and spooky symbols.
Happened here on 2 installs.
We rolled back to 3.0.2 but as you know 3.0.2 has that nasty error like Warning: mysql_real_escape_string(): 26 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in .../public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 785
I suspect this is happening because you don't specify connection encoding in m_wpdb
I've sent an email to you guys some time ago with my modified versions of move-blogs.php script and some explanations. You can refer to it and check how I specified connection encoding: mysql_query("SET character_set_results = 'utf8', character_set_client = 'utf8', character_set_connection = 'utf8', character_set_database = 'utf8', character_set_server = 'utf8'");
I confirm the issue with 3.0.3 and spooky symbols.
Happened here on 2 installs.
We rolled back to 3.0.2 but as you know 3.0.2 has that nasty error like Warning: mysql_real_escape_string(): 26 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in .../public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 785
I suspect this is happening because you don't specify connection encoding in m_wpdb
I've sent an email to you guys some time ago with my modified versions of move-blogs.php script and some explanations. You can refer to it and check how I specified connection encoding: mysql_query("SET character_set_results = 'utf8', character_set_client = 'utf8', character_set_connection = 'utf8', character_set_database = 'utf8', character_set_server = 'utf8'");
@VentureMaker - thanks will take a look again and see if we can get a test version out.
The strange thing is though, I didn't change any of the actual connection code, and the rest (apart from the db connection part) is standard WP db library (extended into our layer) - so it's finding the difference between the two that caused the issue I'm investigating at the moment.
I saw that you didn't change anything related to connections and I also find this weird.
But we've learned our lesson already (not only with WP) - connection should specify all parameters, including encoding. This won't harm, it may only help :)
OK, so i also find out that my main site (not user blog) when create a new post with double blank space after a punctuation mark such as period results in a weird character as this: Â. When create only one blank space after a punctuation mark such as exclamation point (i.e., period, comma), the strange character of  magically disappears.
Under setting >> reading >> encoding for pages and feeds I have UTF-8 as the default. I don't see why the strange characters keep appearing (such as diamond shape question mark on other user blogs) right after multidb upgrade (i.e., to the very latest as now as in the moment of my writing this very post).
6593 pointsLike some sort of WPMU DEV GodExceptionally helpfulLifetime member
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate
—
30th January 2011
#
info@sbemedia, a link so we could see what's happening would be helpful as well as a walkthrough of what you've done please.
Usually it;s a charset issue within your databases. Did you just setup multidb? If so, what was the original charset for the db? What's the one for the databases you;re now using?
sbeadverts.com/ If you look at the services section healine you will see an example. This problem seems to come and go. I have checked DB settings in my php admin, its all utf8_unicode_ci, I have also tried Commenting these two lines out in wp-config.php
No change. Still a strange  keeps showing up everwhere there is a doubble space.
This is a fresh install of wp 3.0.4 with Multi-DB version 3.0.5
Active Plugins:
Supporter
Supporter ads
Secure WordPress
Smart Youtube
SwfObj
WordPress Importer
I have uninstalled all plugins and cleaned DB still no change.
I have deleted everything and started over, Even if all I have installed is wp and multi-db I get this error.
6593 pointsLike some sort of WPMU DEV GodExceptionally helpfulLifetime member
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate
—
30th January 2011
#
I ask because not sure if you were looking at a live copy of the page or a browser cached one. Did you check to see if that line was modified in the output? It's like third or forth one down from the top in the outputted source.
Same problem, I just upgraded from Multisite 3.0.1 with Multi-db 3.0.1 to Multisite and Multi-db 3.0.5. I'm getting the black diamond question marks throughout the text on all my blogs. Any solutions yet? I'm not excited about exporting and importing all my blogs.
Thanks,
Chuck S.
Experiencing the black diamond issues on hundreds of our users blogs. This wasnt happening with multidb 3.0.2 or WP 3.0.5, but upgrading to 3.0.5 and 3.1 over the weekend caused quite a few problems like this. Switching back isn't possible.
So how do I fix it? There's suggestion here to export and reimport. Ok, how? I have 40k blogs to work with, so this isn't a tiny endeavor. Shutting the site down isn't acceptable. How can I automate the process of either making the corrections to the underlying tables directly, or one-by-one export & import each blog automatically?
I once had a plugin that would run PHP on each site through the admin panel, but can't find it now. There was also an example for hooking into the network update script. This is extremely frustrating.
Any thoughts or recommendations would be very much appreciated.
The solution there, until we hear otherwise, seems to be to down-grade to Multi-db 3.0.4. I'm running WP 3.0.5 and went back to Multi-db 3.0.4. So far so good.
The solution there, until we hear otherwise, seems to be to down-grade to Multi-db 3.0.4. I'm running WP 3.0.5 and went back to Multi-db 3.0.4
Unfortunately, there's something else afoot here. Switching to 3.0.4 (or any other MultiDB version) results in all the text widgets for the home blog, and some other blogs, being forcibly removed from the database on the second and subsequent accesses. Manually recreating them works to preserve their data, but this is just evil. For a site like the one I'm working on, there's a TON of data in these text widgets, so when the data is lost, it's a lot of work to recreate it. I've actually gone so far now as to specifically export the widget_text option from wp_1_options first. Sigh.
Switching to 3.0.4 also just changes the funky characters I see. 3.0.5 shows the black diamonds, but 3.0.4 shows funky A's as well as other characters. (I switched recently from 3.0.2). Switching back to 3.0.2 doesn't help either, as then I get the funky black diamonds again. Can't win here.
Hello, it seems to me that the original blogs that got weird character cannot be fixed by update even though I'm using version 3.1 wordpress. Fortunately, newly created sites of members are fixed and don't have the same problem. The question is how to fix the problem of the older blogs/sites?
Hi, @argh2xxx, I'm working on a bash script that can be run against the databases. When it's done i'll post a copy. Any thoughts or advice are welcomed.
Responses (31)
Developer — 13th November 2010 #
If you had no problems with 3.0.2 (relating to connections dropping or errors) then please move back to that version for now. - I've not come across any encoding issues on my installs, and to be honest, the code changed in the 3.0.3 upgrade doesn't touch the standard WP db functions so I'm not sure what is happening with your install.
Can you check in something like phpmyadmin to see if the encoding issue is only when the data is displayed in wp or is actually incorrect in the database as well.
Member — 15th November 2010 #
Strangely, only very old blogs from users who created their blogs long before the users who created their blogs with wordpress 3.0.1 that got hit with diamond shaped question mark. I solve the problem by import such blogs from exports, and the imports fix the question marks problem. I guess the databases store the wrong encode, by exporting and then importing, the databases automatically fix the encode on the new imports? LOL, but that how I solve it, and I have not a clue why! It's like magic. I hope you know...
Member — 17th November 2010 #
Barry,
I confirm the issue with 3.0.3 and spooky symbols.
Happened here on 2 installs.
We rolled back to 3.0.2 but as you know 3.0.2 has that nasty error like
Warning: mysql_real_escape_string(): 26 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in .../public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 785I suspect this is happening because you don't specify connection encoding in m_wpdb
I've sent an email to you guys some time ago with my modified versions of move-blogs.php script and some explanations. You can refer to it and check how I specified connection encoding:
mysql_query("SET character_set_results = 'utf8', character_set_client = 'utf8', character_set_connection = 'utf8', character_set_database = 'utf8', character_set_server = 'utf8'");Ditto in db.php and it'll do the trick :)
Member — 17th November 2010 #
Barry,
I confirm the issue with 3.0.3 and spooky symbols.
Happened here on 2 installs.
We rolled back to 3.0.2 but as you know 3.0.2 has that nasty error like
Warning: mysql_real_escape_string(): 26 is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in .../public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 785I suspect this is happening because you don't specify connection encoding in m_wpdb
I've sent an email to you guys some time ago with my modified versions of move-blogs.php script and some explanations. You can refer to it and check how I specified connection encoding:
mysql_query("SET character_set_results = 'utf8', character_set_client = 'utf8', character_set_connection = 'utf8', character_set_database = 'utf8', character_set_server = 'utf8'");Ditto in db.php and it'll do the trick :)
Developer — 17th November 2010 #
@VentureMaker - thanks will take a look again and see if we can get a test version out.
The strange thing is though, I didn't change any of the actual connection code, and the rest (apart from the db connection part) is standard WP db library (extended into our layer) - so it's finding the difference between the two that caused the issue I'm investigating at the moment.
Member — 18th November 2010 #
I saw that you didn't change anything related to connections and I also find this weird.
But we've learned our lesson already (not only with WP) - connection should specify all parameters, including encoding. This won't harm, it may only help :)
Member — 19th November 2010 #
OK, so i also find out that my main site (not user blog) when create a new post with double blank space after a punctuation mark such as period results in a weird character as this: Â. When create only one blank space after a punctuation mark such as exclamation point (i.e., period, comma), the strange character of  magically disappears.
Under setting >> reading >> encoding for pages and feeds I have UTF-8 as the default. I don't see why the strange characters keep appearing (such as diamond shape question mark on other user blogs) right after multidb upgrade (i.e., to the very latest as now as in the moment of my writing this very post).
Help?
Member — 23rd November 2010 #
Waiting for 3.0.4 :)
Member — 25th November 2010 #
I can also confirm the diamond square image charset errors with multi-db 3.0.3. Once I reverted back to 3.0.2 there is no issues, yet...
Member — 30th January 2011 #
I am also having this problem with wpmu 3.0.4 with multi-db 3.0.5. Strange  characters keep showing up after a double space.
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate — 30th January 2011 #
info@sbemedia, a link so we could see what's happening would be helpful as well as a walkthrough of what you've done please.
Usually it;s a charset issue within your databases. Did you just setup multidb? If so, what was the original charset for the db? What's the one for the databases you;re now using?
Member — 30th January 2011 #
sbeadverts.com/ If you look at the services section healine you will see an example. This problem seems to come and go. I have checked DB settings in my php admin, its all utf8_unicode_ci, I have also tried Commenting these two lines out in wp-config.php
// define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
// define('DB_COLLATE', '');
No change. Still a strange  keeps showing up everwhere there is a doubble space.
This is a fresh install of wp 3.0.4 with Multi-DB version 3.0.5
Active Plugins:
Supporter
Supporter ads
Secure WordPress
Smart Youtube
SwfObj
WordPress Importer
I have uninstalled all plugins and cleaned DB still no change.
I have deleted everything and started over, Even if all I have installed is wp and multi-db I get this error.
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate — 30th January 2011 #
Just curious. Could you do me a favor and replace this line in your theme's header.php
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" />with this:
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />and see if that helps please.
Member — 30th January 2011 #
No Change at all.
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate — 30th January 2011 #
Did you change it back? I;m still showing that line to be the utf8 when I look at the code.
Member — 30th January 2011 #
yes i switched it back after no change
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate — 30th January 2011 #
I ask because not sure if you were looking at a live copy of the page or a browser cached one. Did you check to see if that line was modified in the output? It's like third or forth one down from the top in the outputted source.
Member — 30th January 2011 #
Yes I cleared cache and refreshed page, line was modified in source output but no change in strange Character on screen
Keeper of the Dark Chocolate — 30th January 2011 #
Thanks. I was hoping that it was something simple but pity it;s not.
I;ve gone ahead and forwarded this onto the developer, Barry to take a look.
edit: While I'm thinking about it, what hosting software is running this site/server? CPanel? Direct Admin?
Member — 31st January 2011 #
C Panel
Member — 2nd February 2011 #
Any feedback yet?
Member — 5th February 2011 #
Bump any idea what is causing this problem?
Sales & Support Lead — 6th February 2011 #
Hiya sbemedia,
I'll ask Barry to respond. I know he's been hard at work on more than a few plugins this weekend.
Thanks for your patience.
Member — 17th February 2011 #
Hi Guys,
Same problem, I just upgraded from Multisite 3.0.1 with Multi-db 3.0.1 to Multisite and Multi-db 3.0.5. I'm getting the black diamond question marks throughout the text on all my blogs. Any solutions yet? I'm not excited about exporting and importing all my blogs.
Thanks,
Chuck S.
Member — 28th February 2011 #
Experiencing the black diamond issues on hundreds of our users blogs. This wasnt happening with multidb 3.0.2 or WP 3.0.5, but upgrading to 3.0.5 and 3.1 over the weekend caused quite a few problems like this. Switching back isn't possible.
So how do I fix it? There's suggestion here to export and reimport. Ok, how? I have 40k blogs to work with, so this isn't a tiny endeavor. Shutting the site down isn't acceptable. How can I automate the process of either making the corrections to the underlying tables directly, or one-by-one export & import each blog automatically?
I once had a plugin that would run PHP on each site through the admin panel, but can't find it now. There was also an example for hooking into the network update script. This is extremely frustrating.
Any thoughts or recommendations would be very much appreciated.
Member — 1st March 2011 #
@Shawn - There is another thread in the Forum with the same issue at:
http://premium.wpmudev.org/forums/topic/multidb-305-breaks-just-like-other-older-versions-for-strange-characters
The solution there, until we hear otherwise, seems to be to down-grade to Multi-db 3.0.4. I'm running WP 3.0.5 and went back to Multi-db 3.0.4. So far so good.
Hope this helps,
Chuck S.
Member — 1st March 2011 #
P.S. No other changes were necessary. The odd characters corrected themselves.
Chuck S.
Member — 2nd March 2011 #
The solution there, until we hear otherwise, seems to be to down-grade to Multi-db 3.0.4. I'm running WP 3.0.5 and went back to Multi-db 3.0.4Unfortunately, there's something else afoot here. Switching to 3.0.4 (or any other MultiDB version) results in all the text widgets for the home blog, and some other blogs, being forcibly removed from the database on the second and subsequent accesses. Manually recreating them works to preserve their data, but this is just evil. For a site like the one I'm working on, there's a TON of data in these text widgets, so when the data is lost, it's a lot of work to recreate it. I've actually gone so far now as to specifically export the widget_text option from wp_1_options first. Sigh.
Switching to 3.0.4 also just changes the funky characters I see. 3.0.5 shows the black diamonds, but 3.0.4 shows funky A's as well as other characters. (I switched recently from 3.0.2). Switching back to 3.0.2 doesn't help either, as then I get the funky black diamonds again. Can't win here.
Member — 2nd March 2011 #
Hello, it seems to me that the original blogs that got weird character cannot be fixed by update even though I'm using version 3.1 wordpress. Fortunately, newly created sites of members are fixed and don't have the same problem. The question is how to fix the problem of the older blogs/sites?
Member — 2nd March 2011 #
Hi, @argh2xxx, I'm working on a bash script that can be run against the databases. When it's done i'll post a copy. Any thoughts or advice are welcomed.
Member — 20th May 2011 #
Hi Shawn, have you got your bash script? Can you post on here to share with all of us? Thanks...
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