SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

[TeddyLC]

So when I'm posting on the forum, I get constant SQL errors... I noticed it always does it if I use a special character, like a heart, but it sometimes does it for completely plaintext posts as well.

The specific message I get is:

• General Error
  SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]
  
  Incorrect string value: '\xE2\x80\x8BYea...' for column 'post_text' at row 1 [1366]
  
  An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.

Obviously, the specific string itself varies with the topic I'm trying to post to. I type up my comments directly in the forum's text entry boxes, so there's no issue of Word docs converting some punctuation marks into a special character. I'm kind of at a loss. Is it just me? It happens on my work computer and my home laptop, and it happens whether I'm in Firefox or Chrome. I went through the topic titles of a few pages of the Website Comments forum back until mid-2013 in case someone else had listed this problem as well, but I didn't see anything. Any advice on what I can do to stop getting constant SQL errors?

Thanks!

 

[beardie]

Not just you. This affects everyone. Specifically it is when emoji characters are used. In short, this is because those special characters use a character size (in terms of how many bytes each character uses) bigger than the database supports.

This is something that will take a bit of time to fix. However, I'm working on building a new server for the website. With that, I am hoping to include the change to the database that will resolve this. Until then, it's best to avoid anything other than basic characters or to use image based smileys.

 

[TeddyLC]

I'm glad it's not just me! Sometimes it happens when I don't use smilies at all, too, though - I've been trying to reply to a topic since yesterday morning, and it's entirely plain text, and I've retyped it even, but it still won't post.

Thank you so much for all of your work!

 

[beardie]

In those cases it is usually a fancy quote or apostrophe. Often times phones and even browsers now, will swap a simple one for a "directional" one. The hexadecimal values in the error message is actually the character it doesn't like. You can usually copy and paste the hex code into google and find a page that indicates what character it is.

Hopefully I'll have that all fixed soon.

 

[TeddyLC]

Oh - I didn't know that browseres were starting to do that now. That was probably the problem, then. The hex code trick is good to know - I had no idea how to interpret it. Thanks so much!