[TYPO3] Bug? Using UTF-8, 'Ä' in template.constants: Error 102!

[Andreas Becker]

Hi Martin

We figured out that it is mainly the way HOW you import the database.

i.e. our mother installation utf8 worked perfectly
(the login problem we had was caused by a missing dot in the cookiesessionid
settings in installtool)

in all daughter installation on our live server we had problems.
As we figured out the live server is based on ISO standard. The database was
always imported in the wrong order.
A MUST be IS: - if your server is on ISO Standard:

1. create a new database MANUALLY - not thru TYPO3! better use i.e.
phpmyadmin or a panel solution
2. VERY IMPORTANT! Change the Collation of your database to utf8-general-ci
NOW!!! - if you forget this step then you will have those cryptic signes
instead of chinese or any other "utf8" language.
3. Import your FULLY UTF8 utf8-general-ci database. INNODB or MYISAM don't
matter as we figured out. We prefer INNODB as WOS-Portable (Our LocalServer
Solution) is using it.
4. Check the database settings

Additionally we had to skip the "set Character" part like described from
Karsten if MYSQL is operating in ISO-Standard. If the it is in UTF8 Standard
you could use all three settings but it also worked with those two like on
the ISO-Mysql:

// T3Pack UTF8 multi-byte content;
// if you import an utf8-database set the collation in MYSql to
utf8-general-ci BEFORE you import the database
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['forceCharset'] = 'utf-8';
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['SYS']['UTF8filesystem'] = 'true';
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['SYS']['multiplyDBfieldSize'] = '1';
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['SYS']['setDBinit'] = 'SET NAMES utf8;'.chr(10).'SET
SESSION character_set_server=utf8;';
//.chr(10).'SET CHARACTER SET utf8;' not used!
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['SYS']['t3lib_cs_convMethod'] = 'iconv';
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['SYS']['t3lib_cs_utils'] = 'iconv';


Andi