[TYPO3-ttnews] sql error in updating to tt_news 3.1.0

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

On 26-12-2011 10:48, Simon Child wrote:
> I tracked it down to my using
> $TYPO3_CONF_VARS['SYS']['multiplyDBfieldSize']=3, from the note on this
> page:
>
> http://wiki.typo3.org/Upgrade#Notes_4

The best solution is to move to utf-8 tables and set multiplyDBfieldSize 
to 1. Working around this may work for some issues, but it might cause 
another problem when you least expect it.

> varchar(384) is not valid so the table definition changes to specify text
> instead (clever) but then the key definition becomes invalid - not so clever
> :(

You must be using a very old version of MySQL. Since 5.0.3 varchar 
fields with a maximum length of 65,535 (depending on charset, maximum 
row size, other columns) are possible.
Do be DBAL compliant a maximum of 4,000 is recommended.

> I get confused about whether or not I need to use multiplyDBfieldSize but I
> think I do - utf8 multilanguage site with a database which I can't change
> (managed server with lots of other sites):

Do all these sites share the same database?? Settings in MySQL can be 
done on a per database basis, not on server level.

Having your site in utf-8 and storing things in latin1 tables is a 
recipe for trouble.

I've made a PHP script to convert utf-8 encoded data in latin1 tables 
[1]. There is also a little script that tries to detect problems in a 
database [2].

It's very wise to upgrade your installation soon. TYPO3 4.6 needs PHP 
5.3 as a minimum, recent versions of TYPO3 use utf-8 as a default 
internally. Having utf-8 all over the place (database, TYPO3 backend, 
website frontend output) removes conversions and thus reduces chances of 
problems and use of computing power.

[1] 
http://wiki.typo3.org/UTF-8_support#Convert_an_already_existing_database_to_UTF-8
[2] http://dcbjht.home.xs4all.nl/typo3/db_utf8_test.zip

-- 
Kind regards / met vriendelijke groet,

Jigal van Hemert.