Exporting SQL database of Latin and Cyrillic content via phpMyAdmin properly

Databases
1

Hello,
I have a Joomla 1.5 website with articles in English and Russian. I have exported the SQL database via phpMyAdmin using its default values. After importing the database to a new server i found out that all Russian content has a messed up charset, and looks something like this: О «Бездушной Компьютерной» Музыке

Then i have opened the database in Notepad++ and indeed all Cyrillic characters are a mess.

What setting should i set in phpMyAdmin to export the database properly, so Latin and Cyrillic content will be displayed properly?

My Joomla is utf-8, and so is the database.

Thank you.

2

Hi there,

Are you viewing your exported data in Notepad++ using the UTF8 encoding?
This can be found under the setting “Encoding”, the fifth item in the menu bar at the top.

3

Hi,
Exactly, and i see Cyrillic content messed.

4

So when you exported from PHPMyAdmin did you specify the character set as utf-8?

If not, you can do this by selecting “Export Method” as “Custom”, then under “Output” select “utf-8” from the drop down menu.

5

My phpMyAdmin looks different actually. I think it was utf-8, i have used default settings, did not change. This is an example page of bad cyryllyc charset: http://azmand.site11.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=544:-q-q-&catid=3:text-main&Itemid=29
Now my database is utf-8 definitely, i have converted it and tables collation using a common sql query, it did no help anyway.
Thank you.

6

You need to find this out. If you are viewing your exported db file using the uft-8 encoding in Notepad++ (as described above) and you are seeing gobbledygook, then obviously the file wasn’t exported correctly.
Even if your PHPMyAdmin interface looks different, there will be an option to specify the charset upon export.

I believe you that you are having the problem that you say you are.

7

Thanks a bunch for willing to help me everyone.

I have solved the issue finally. After all the exported database was OK, the issue was appearing when importing the database actually, that’s because i was importing it using a tool from the hosting company, that tool was messing up all non latin characters.

So idecided to give a try to BigDump tool, and this is a very good one, it did it, it preserved the utf8 and latin charset because i told it so.

Cheers.