[mythtv-users] UTF-8 display problem in program guide with 0.21.0+fixes19961-0ubuntu8

[Michael T. Dean]

On 09/06/2009 11:54 AM, Clark Lee wrote:
> I am using the mythtv pre-compiled version 0.21.0+fixes19961-0ubuntu8 with Ubuntu 9.04.
> The problem is that all UTF8 characters (in my case Chinese) is displayed as ?????? in the program guide.
>   

Because you're (=the theme is) using a font that doesn't provide Chinese 
characters.

> It is really strange. I have made sure I have done the following:
> 1) change the mythconverg database to use utf8 as default character set;
> change the default collation as utf8 as well;
>   

The default character set/collation/... needs to be latin1 for MythTV 
0.21-fixes and below.

> 2) change the program table title/subtitle feilds to utf8 as well;
> change the default collation as utf8, too;
>   

This corrupted data in your database.

> Now, if I access the database from any mysql client, I could see the program title/subtitle as displayed correct.
>   

Which means your database is broken.

> And, I have installed Chinese locale, both simplied and traditional Chinese. 
>
> I could login to gnome with Chinese menus, and all display well.
> I set the mythtv language setting to "Hanzi (Chinese)", program guide charater as first choice "Chinese" and the second as "English".
>
> Menus is 'default'. The Chinese menu is displayed correctly; however, if I go to the program guide page, the program names/titles are all in ??????, except for some digital figures and english characters. 
>
> What should I do? 
> How the program guide language settings affect the display of program guide page? (I am puzzled here, because I think once UTF-8 is used, any character can be displayed correctly)
>
> P.S. I used to use mythtv trunck code v0.21 and compile my self on Ubuntu 8.04, the program guide shows correctly once the database is correctly setup as above. 
> Now to save time of compile, I switched to the pre-compiled version.

If you're just starting, start over and do /not/ mess with the database 
schema.  If you have a lot of historical data, revert to a backup from 
before you started changing the schema.  If you have no backup, you may 
get to start over, anyway.

See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Fixing_Corrupt_Database_Encoding for more 
information on why you're breaking Myth when you mess with the database 
schema/encoding.  Note that the "fix" there won't fix your database as 
your database is now partially corrupt.  You might be able to use the 
partial corruption fix, but whether or not it works is completely 
dependent on how much you've broken in your current database.

The easiest thing is to start over and this time, don't mess with the 
database schema.

Mike