UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads 7 Version 7 Support Punctuation marks appears as ?

Greetings . . .

The UBB 7.7.5 over at Inliners is complete. One of the things I've noticed in browsing through old posts is that some contain these strange diamond encased ? marks. This posting in particular is one of mine from '15:
https://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=84476



On longer posts I always compose them in Outlook, save in a draft folder and then post them when complete. Could this be result of the cut-and-paste operation?

They didn't appear this way 7.5.8. Or when pasted into the New Post box. These should be single quote and dash.

And clue what is at play?

regards,
Keith

This has to do with
CHARSET'] = "iso-8859-1
and CHARSET'] = "utf-8
In the language files and database that collation do not match for iso-8859-1.
You can search here for diamond for a start.
Like
https://www.ubbcentral.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/257369
https://www.ubbcentral.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/262227
https://www.ubbcentral.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/259803

Then you will need to make a decision to either switch back to iso-8859-1
or attempt to convert to utf-8

Basically if you wish to stay at iso-8859-1
GOTO the UBB CP select languages and then edit generic.php
The first entry probably has utf-8 then just change it to iso-8859-1
save and exit.

It's a simple characterset collision; basically we USED to store our default characterset as:
iso-8859-1

And now store the default as:
utf-8

This is for standards compliance, we follow current web standards and they have moved away from the old "Latin alphabet no. 1" in favor of the newer Unicode Standard (its how we can insert emoticons and non-latin characters 👍).

To "fix" it you just change the "CHARSET" value in the /languages/english/generic.php file, or you can "convert" to the newer characterset by following the steps of the conversion tool in the Control Panel (CP -> Tools & Information -> Content Rebuilder -> Transision Actions -> "Update All Tables to UTF8mb4"). If you choose to convert please ensure you have a backup.


Either way, there is tons of reading on this topic here if you use the search, "diamonds", "utf", or "UTF8mb4" are some keywords for starters.

Thanks Ruben . . .

I checked my backup copy of the language files and sure enough it was Latin 1. When I did the upgrade I overlaid that whole directory with the files from the distribution. Would the upgrade scripts have retained this setting had a chosen the other option?

Thanks for quick response on inquiries.

regards,
Keith

Depends on the upgrade path you use; myself I always overwite the language files while making changes manually after the upgrade; if you don't upload the language files and instead rely on the upgrade script it should make only "new changes".

Basically if you use the upgrade tool it should set that particular string as:
New Install: utf-8
Upgrade with Tool: Previous Setting

The quick fix is ,just edit the language file generic.php .
Changing the charset value from utf-8 back to iso-8859-1
Assuming your database tables are set to Latin-swedish or they could well be utf8 now.
That can be done via the UBB CP or just ftp and edit the file

But you should pursue to go all out for UTF-8
It is a modern standard and sooner or later you will not have a choice.

It is a do it now or do it later with more headaches.

As far as the other weird characters they can be fixed for the most part.
Somewhere on my PC I have a text file with SQL update queries that will correct the common ones.

Looks like for now you opted for the quick fix .
iso-8859-1

Database connection shows that MySQL is running "utf8mb4_unicode_ci" collation - so it is just the payloads in the database that are "so last century".

I take it that the fix entails and unload and reload of all table data?

Gizmo went into more detail than I did.
But anyway you would change the charset in the language file back to UTF-8
Run the tool in the UBB Control Panel to convert to utf8mb4 which will change the tables.
Then you may need to rebuild tables. run the re builders and or run some update queries.

You just need to make database backups in case it fails for each step.
Also there are lots of posts about this feature here.

There is no simple way to undo this so that is why you need backups of the database.