# The character set "utf8" is not supported
**URL:** https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669
**Category:** Installation
**Created:** [May 31, 2023, 1:51pm UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669 "2023-05-31T13:51:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mendesknabepr](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/mendesknabepr)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2023, 1:51pm UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/1 "2023-05-31T13:51:17Z")
Hello everyone, I hope someone can help me with the following problem. System environment:
Apache2.4.41(Win64)
PHP 7.1.4
MariaDB 10.11.2(winx64)
I updated from C5 version 8.3.2 to version 8.5.12. After that I can no longer start the page. The following error message always appears:
– The character set “utf8” is not supported. –
Does anyone have an idea how I can fix this?
Best regards and many thanks in advance.
Paulo
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### Author:  [@hutman](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/hutman)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2023, 5:32pm UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/2 "2023-05-31T17:32:15Z")
I believe in 8.5.0 databases now need utf8mb4
Release Notes - [8.5.0 Release Notes :: Concrete CMS](https://documentation.concretecms.org/developers/introduction/version-history/850-release-notes)
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### Author:  [@JohntheFish](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/JohntheFish)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2023, 6:51pm UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/3 "2023-05-31T18:51:05Z")
If you search back through the forums, there was a previous thread on this which included commands or a script to update to utf8mb4.
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### Author:  [@mendesknabepr](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/mendesknabepr)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 8:30am UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/4 "2023-06-01T08:30:32Z")
Thank you for your quick feedback, I’ll see what I can do with it. Thanks.
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### Author:  [@mendesknabepr](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/mendesknabepr)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 8:30am UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/5 "2023-06-01T08:30:58Z")
Thank you for your feedback, I’ll see what I can do with it. Thanks.
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### Author:  [@dgreer](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/dgreer)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/6 "2023-06-01T18:42:23Z")
I also need to also change my database to uftmb4. I have not found the commands or script referred to in the JohntheFish post. Did you find it?
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### Author:  [@mesuva](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/mesuva)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2023, 10:00pm UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/7 "2023-06-01T22:00:25Z")
I had to upgrade an older Concrete database recently to uftmb4, and found that scripts or commands in something like PHPMyAdmin to update all tables would fail, due to keys conflicting or other issues.
In the end what I did was perform a database dump, then open exported SQL in a text editor and do some find and replaces on the the CHARSET and COLLATE values. It didn’t take long to do, but I just had to carefully perform the find and replaces so that it would handle all occurrences.
I then wiped my database and re-imported it via my updated database dump. That worked fine.
Doing it this way I don’t think would be considered good database practice in general, but for this specific case of going from utf8 to utf8mb4 I believe it’s going to be pretty safe to do.
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### Author:  [@mendesknabepr](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/mendesknabepr)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2023, 8:26am UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/8 "2023-06-02T08:26:38Z")
Unfortunately I haven’t found anything “useful” so far. I then decided to go the same way as “mesuva”. I am attaching “mesuva’s” reply to me as a “screenshot”. This solution worked for me, even if, as “mesuva” writes, this is probably not part of normal database practice.
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### Author:  [@mendesknabepr](https://forums.concretecms.org/u/mendesknabepr)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2023, 8:29am UTC](https://forums.concretecms.org/t/the-character-set-utf8-is-not-supported/5669/9 "2023-06-02T08:29:31Z")
Hello,
Thank you for your reply. I can only confirm your statements. I haven’t found any useful or executable scripts on this topic either. But I tried your suggested solution. And it looks like it worked. Thank you again.