Phoenix - Your AI AssistantMySQL database needs to handle non-English characters
- Posted:
- Proposals: 35
- Remote
- #4516119
- OPPORTUNITY
- Awarded
Ystrad Mynach 
Description
Experience Level: Expert
Experienced MySQL/WordPress developer needed to fix character encoding issues in a 391MB production database.
Greek characters currently display as "???" due to charset/collation issue following DDoS attack some years ago.
Tasks: analyze database config, convert tables and fields to proper UTF-8/utf8mb4 without data loss, correct connection settings, verify restored Greek text, and provide a safe migration plan for a staging environment. Expertise with backups, SQL conversions and WordPress charset nuances essential.
(I'll shortly be setting up a WordPress staging site and it seems a suitable time to fix the database problem.)
Nigel Howarth
Greek characters currently display as "???" due to charset/collation issue following DDoS attack some years ago.
Tasks: analyze database config, convert tables and fields to proper UTF-8/utf8mb4 without data loss, correct connection settings, verify restored Greek text, and provide a safe migration plan for a staging environment. Expertise with backups, SQL conversions and WordPress charset nuances essential.
(I'll shortly be setting up a WordPress staging site and it seems a suitable time to fix the database problem.)
Nigel Howarth
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Hi Nigel, are any custom plugins, legacy scripts, imports, or external integrations writing directly to the MySQL database outside WordPress’s normal $wpdb connection? That matters because we need to confirm the charset at every write path; otherwise the database can be converted correctly on staging but new content may still be written using the wrong encoding and recreate the issue.
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Once the WordPress staging site is ready, could you provide access so I can assess the database structure and recovery options?
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Do you still have access to an older database backup from before the DDoS incident, or is the current 391MB database the only remaining source of the Greek content?