Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
That’s not exactly a WordPress problems, and it would be easier to upgrade MySQL on the server, to be honest.
You need MySQL 5.5.3 or higher to support the utf8mb4_unicode_ci collation.
Have you contacted your hosting provider?
Alternatively, you can try changing your collation to utf8_general_ci but that might cause character encoding problems with the existing data.
Unfortunately the hosting provider will not upgrade MySQL and basically said “Google it”.
Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Ok, so on the old database I recommend changing the collation on the tables to utf8_general_ci and then export again.
Alternatively, move just the content by exporting/importing in a fresh installation via the Tools section of each blog’s Dashboard.
Or, alternatively, find a nicer hosting provider. 😉
James, thanks for the responses. I was able to get it working and posted how in this thread in case it works for others too.
Unfortunately I don’t always have control over the client’s hosting provider but when I do I will start considering MySQL 5.5.3 or above a prerequisite to be considered an appropriate WordPress hosting provider.
Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Thanks for sharing your solution!
