Characters like ? show as question marks in Confluence
Asked by Ictbeheer:

I installed the dutch language pack and characters which should be ? are shown as ? within Confluence:

![questionmark.PNG](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5609iDF62C9CE8C1E2251/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "questionmark.PNG")

A little digging in the forums says it could have to do with character encoding settings. I have set everything up according to the manual. I also checked the results posted in [this](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/configuring-database-character-encoding-177698.html?_ga=2.103110912.1418206822.1504513145-175731645.1504513145#ConfiguringDatabaseCharacterEncoding-UpdatingexistingdatabasetoUTF8) page.

I use MySQL as database and checked the status and table status. The output is looking good:![mysql.PNG](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5610i6C0F40EAB4EA590C/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "mysql.PNG")

Also the JDBC connection is set to UTF8 in server.xml:

![serverxml.PNG](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5611i11DA84D44582AEDB/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "serverxml.PNG")

And also in the confluence.cfg.xml:

![confluencecfg.PNG](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5612i9FA22829280A398D/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "confluencecfg.PNG")

Within confluence settings itself also shows UTF-8:

![confluence_utf.PNG](/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5613i603E37161B5B5648/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "confluence_utf.PNG")

my.ini of MySQL installation settings:

![myini1.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5614iC7129FEF64588EC9/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "myini1.PNG")![myini2.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5615iB8CF169189AD43D1/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "myini2.PNG")

The results of the ./admin/encodingtestrun.action page:

![coding.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5616i2A861981E51B2BC7/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "coding.PNG")

Any ideas on how to solve these character problems?

Thanks.


Answers:
author: Shannon S
body: Hello Martijn,

Can you confirm also if your application server has the encoding [per this page](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/configuring-url-encoding-on-tomcat-application-server-174898.html)?

Thank you!

Kind Regards,  
Shannon

comments: author: Ictbeheer
body: Hi Shannon,

Yes, it's already been set by default:

![tomcat.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5636iEB6BADA4CD69DA35/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "tomcat.PNG")


author: Shannon S
body: Thank you, Martijn.

There are more steps in the [How to fix Collation and Character set of a MySQL Database](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-fix-the-collation-and-character-set-of-a-mysql-database-670958160.html) that will show you how to drill down deeper to tables and columns.

Can you review the steps there and let us know if it helps you?

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: Ictbeheer
body: Hi Shannon,

I opened a support ticket for this issue. They told me it's a bug. They opened a bug report for me at <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-53412>

I hope the issue will be addressed soon. I am really in need of a dutch version of Confluence.

Thank you for your help.


author: Shannon S
body: Martijn,

Thank you for letting us know that. I do hope to see that resolved for you.

Take care and Kind Regards,  
Shannon


Tags: special-character

utf