Cannot Create New Blogs

I’ve checked that the db user has full privileges which is the case too . . .

Error log within wp-admin gives plenty of errors relating to the COLLATE change;
[11-Dec-2010 14:30:51] WordPress database error COLLATION ‘latin1_general_ci’ is not valid for CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ for query CREATE TABLE wp_29_terms (
term_id bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
name varchar(200) NOT NULL default ”,
slug varchar(200) NOT NULL default ”,
term_group bigint(10) NOT NULL default 0,
PRIMARY KEY (term_id),
UNIQUE KEY slug (slug),
KEY name (name)
) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE latin1_general_ci made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, make_db_current_silent, dbDelta
[11-Dec-2010 14:30:51] WordPress database error COLLATION ‘latin1_general_ci’ is not valid for CHARACTER SET ‘utf8’ for query

The previous attempt ’28’ to create a site before the COLLATE change gave loads of error (I’ve just listed the first few here);

[11-Dec-2010 14:03:36] WordPress database error Table ‘justbcsh_wpmu.wp_28_options’ doesn’t exist for query SELECT option_name FROM wp_28_options made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, populate_options
[11-Dec-2010 14:03:36] WordPress database error Table ‘justbcsh_wpmu.wp_28_options’ doesn’t exist for query INSERT INTO wp_28_options (option_name, option_value, autoload) VALUES (‘siteurl’, ‘http://main.just-2bme.com’, ‘yes’), (‘blogname’, ‘My Site’, ‘yes’), (‘blogdescription’, ‘Just another WSW Clients Information & Resources site’, ‘yes’), (‘users_can_register’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘admin_email’, ‘you@example.com’, ‘yes’), (‘start_of_week’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘use_balanceTags’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘use_smilies’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘require_name_email’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘comments_notify’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘posts_per_rss’, ’10’, ‘yes’), (‘rss_use_excerpt’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘mailserver_url’, ‘mail.example.com’, ‘yes’), (‘mailserver_login’, ‘login@example.com’, ‘yes’), (‘mailserver_pass’, ‘password’, ‘yes’), (‘mailserver_port’, ‘110’, ‘yes’), (‘default_category’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘default_comment_status’, ‘open’, ‘yes’), (‘default_ping_status’, ‘open’, ‘yes’), (‘default_pingback_flag’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘default_post_edit_rows’, ’10’, ‘yes’), (‘posts_per_page’, ’10’, ‘yes’), (‘date_format’, ‘F j, Y’, ‘yes’), (‘time_format’, ‘g:i a’, ‘yes’), (‘links_updated_date_format’, ‘F j, Y g:i a’, ‘yes’), (‘links_recently_updated_prepend’, ‘‘, ‘yes’), (‘links_recently_updated_append’, ‘‘, ‘yes’), (‘links_recently_updated_time’, ‘120’, ‘yes’), (‘comment_moderation’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘moderation_notify’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘permalink_structure’, ‘/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/’, ‘yes’), (‘gzipcompression’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘hack_file’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘blog_charset’, ‘UTF-8’, ‘yes’), (‘moderation_keys’, ”, ‘no’), (‘active_plugins’, ‘a:0:{}’, ‘yes’), (‘home’, ‘http://main.just-2bme.com’, ‘yes’), (‘category_base’, ”, ‘yes’), (‘ping_sites’, ‘http://rpc.pingomatic.com/’, ‘yes’), (‘advanced_edit’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘comment_max_links’, ‘2’, ‘yes’), (‘gmt_offset’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘default_email_category’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘recently_edited’, ”, ‘no’), (‘template’, ‘twentyten’, ‘yes’), (‘stylesheet’, ‘twentyten’, ‘yes’), (‘comment_whitelist’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘blacklist_keys’, ”, ‘no’), (‘comment_registration’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘rss_language’, ‘en’, ‘yes’), (‘html_type’, ‘text/html’, ‘yes’), (‘use_trackback’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘default_role’, ‘subscriber’, ‘yes’), (‘db_version’, ‘15477’, ‘yes’), (‘uploads_use_yearmonth_folders’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘upload_path’, ”, ‘yes’), (‘blog_public’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘default_link_category’, ‘2’, ‘yes’), (‘show_on_front’, ‘posts’, ‘yes’), (‘tag_base’, ”, ‘yes’), (‘show_avatars’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘avatar_rating’, ‘G’, ‘yes’), (‘upload_url_path’, ”, ‘yes’), (‘thumbnail_size_w’, ‘150’, ‘yes’), (‘thumbnail_size_h’, ‘150’, ‘yes’), (‘thumbnail_crop’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘medium_size_w’, ‘300’, ‘yes’), (‘medium_size_h’, ‘300’, ‘yes’), (‘avatar_default’, ‘mystery’, ‘yes’), (‘enable_app’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘enable_xmlrpc’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘large_size_w’, ‘1024’, ‘yes’), (‘large_size_h’, ‘1024’, ‘yes’), (‘image_default_link_type’, ‘file’, ‘yes’), (‘image_default_size’, ”, ‘yes’), (‘image_default_align’, ”, ‘yes’), (‘close_comments_for_old_posts’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘close_comments_days_old’, ’14’, ‘yes’), (‘thread_comments’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (‘thread_comments_depth’, ‘5’, ‘yes’), (‘page_comments’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘comments_per_page’, ’50’, ‘yes’), (‘default_comments_page’, ‘newest’, ‘yes’), (‘comment_order’, ‘asc’, ‘yes’), (‘sticky_posts’, ‘a:0:{}’, ‘yes’), (‘widget_categories’, ‘a:0:{}’, ‘yes’), (‘widget_text’, ‘a:0:{}’, ‘yes’), (‘widget_rss’, ‘a:0:{}’, ‘yes’), (‘timezone_string’, ”, ‘yes’), (’embed_autourls’, ‘1’, ‘yes’), (’embed_size_w’, ”, ‘yes’), (’embed_size_h’, ‘600’, ‘yes’), (‘page_for_posts’, ‘0’, ‘yes’), (‘page_on_front’, ‘0’, ‘yes’) made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, populate_options
[11-Dec-2010 14:03:36] WordPress database error Table ‘justbcsh_wpmu.wp_28_options’ doesn’t exist for query SELECT option_value FROM wp_28_options WHERE option_name = ‘home’ made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, populate_options, __get_option
[11-Dec-2010 14:03:36] WordPress database error Table ‘justbcsh_wpmu.wp_28_options’ doesn’t exist for query SELECT option_value FROM wp_28_options WHERE option_name = ‘siteurl’ made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, populate_options, __get_option, __get_option
[11-Dec-2010 14:03:36] WordPress database error Table ‘justbcsh_wpmu.wp_28_options’ doesn’t exist for query INSERT INTO wp_28_options (option_name, option_value, autoload) VALUES (‘home’, ‘http://main.just-2bme.com’, ‘yes’) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE option_name = VALUES(option_name), option_value = VALUES(option_value), autoload = VALUES(autoload) made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, populate_options, update_option, add_option
[11-Dec-2010 14:03:36] WordPress database error Table ‘justbcsh_wpmu.wp_28_options’ doesn’t exist for query SELECT autoload FROM wp_28_options WHERE option_name = ‘blodotgsping_url’ made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, populate_options, delete_option
[11-Dec-2010 14:03:36] WordPress database error Table ‘justbcsh_wpmu.wp_28_options’ doesn’t exist for query SELECT autoload FROM wp_28_options WHERE option_name = ‘bodyterminator’ made by wpmu_create_blog, install_blog, populate_options, delete_option

Hi Andrea, so are you saying that I should COLLATE to UTF-8 or should I follow what is written on this page;
http://www.blogsuccessjournal.com/blog-tips-and-advice/wordpress-tips-advice/seeing-weird-characters-on-blog-how-to-fix-wordpress-character-encoding-latin1-to-utf8/

One last question Andrea. Should I return the COLLATE line to what it was before attempting this?

i.e. to;

define(‘DB_COLLATE’,”);

Also, having thought about this. My MS sites were all created as blank MU sites with wordpress MU 2.90. I imported some pages / posts / comments from established ‘normal’ WP sites to populate some of the blogs. So, in that respect each of my current MS sites should all be UTF-8 by default and they should not have this issue. Is that correct? Or does importing include the original character format and of it does then why are the dangers of this not mentioned / some work around written.

Either way I’ve not imported anything since I created a new blog about 5 weeks ago, so it seems to me that this is a serious issue because any MS site could suddenly develop this problem (which seems to be the case when I look at other posts here).

As others have mentioned here if this was a ‘development’ site then fair enough but it’s not. I’ve three MU sites including one to test significant MS changes before implementing these on a ‘real’ MS site because I cannot afford my real sites to go down. Now I’m left in an uneasy space of not knowing if my MU site is going to ‘freeze’ at some point in the future for some ‘vague’ reason. It seems to me that deleting the entire MS site that is afflicted and importing my posts, pages and comments for each sub site again won’t guarantee that this will solve this problem. Is this correct?

I’m not an expert in php or linux or telnet so I’ll be asking my host support if they can convert the database for me. BUT, this is a WORDPRESS site with an army of coders and yes I’m not one of those people but perhaps Andrea you can talk to the developers and ask that some effort is put into tracking this problem down and maybe writing a plugin to do the conversion, including copying the database before hand just in case?

In the mean time thanks for your help.

OK Andrea.

I’ve tried both (COLLATES) and all sites MS work but still no new sites can be created. I’ll ask my hosting people to convert the database and see what happens with that. Thanks for your time.