Import Problem - Charector Set

[Martink]

Hi All,
 When I import Data into my CiviCRM 1.8 (php5) on Joomla 1.0.13 I receive a bunch of "Â" in the data.

From looking through this forum and others it seems like this could be a character set problem.

Therefore I tried changing the character set on the csv input data to unicode UTF8 and changed the MySQL character set from utf8_unicode_ci changed to utf8_general_ci as this is highlighted in PHP Myadmin for utf8 as default.

However, though I tried a few combinations unfortunately I'm still struggling. Could anyone advise?

Thanks,
Martin

[Martink]

Finally got it!

So thought I should post to help if anyone else has the same problem.

In short it was because of the default MySQL type. CiviCRM I guess defined the data type and therefore the system default doesn't matter. On previous hosts I haven't had to worry. However on my current one I had to go to into PHP MyAdmin and set the default Coalition type, otherwise its quite random.

One thing puzzled me and that is why CiviCRM would use UTF8 when "Joomla 1.0.x is not utf8 friendly. You will need to hack joomla to make this happen. " Lobo ..

But not to worry, all sorted now.

For others with a similar problem the below source may add value.
http://forum.joomla.org/index.php?topic=55065.0;wap2

In general I don't think you would always need to start again. Sometimes I think you can do a database dump change the coalition type and then insert.. worked on one similar prob for me previously.

Hope thats of value to somebody ;-)