UNICODE/UTF character issues after migration

Hello, I’m having some issues with a couple hundred image files after I took over a website, and migrated to a new server.

So I’ve realized that all of the file names that included special characters, such as

ü

have now been rendered broken links. I checked quite a few, and see that the images are being linked just as they were eg; /uploads/2015/10/blabla_ü_.jpg

I’ve confirmed that this file exists, but its filename is eg; /uploads/2015/10/blabla_#U00fc_.jpg

I would have thought that the browser/server would decode this to understand that ü = #U00fc but apparently not.

Whats even more strange, is that when I try to access the file directly, using the filemanager thru cPanel I can download it, but I can’t load it via its direct link URL. I’ve even tried changing manually the img src link to reflect the ‘#U00fc’ instead of special characters, but no luck either.

I’m sorta stumped…..appreciate any ideas. Maybe I’ve missed something easy or dumb. haha