# National chars substituted with junk chars **URL:** \ **Category:** Product Support\ **Created:** [July 22, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172 "2025-07-22T14:19:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![miklosjobbagy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/miklosjobbagy/32/13296_2.png) [@miklosjobbagy](https://forum.mautic.org/u/miklosjobbagy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/1 "2025-07-22T14:19:42Z")
**Your software** My Mautic version is: 5.1.1 My PHP version is: 8.1.32 My Database type and version is: 10.6.22-MariaDB-cll-lve **Your problem** My problem is: Hungarian special characters are substituted in all email texts (Subject, Body) wiht junk chars. These errors are showing in the log: Steps I have tried to fix the problem: I rewrote my emails, pasted the right texts with right chars. I could send a few emails fine. However after a few days, the problem came back. Now I have junk chars in place of Hungarian special chars all over my emails. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/mautic/original/2X/2/21d2585146592ed9c9ffccee9adb78b1525c67e0.png) ---
**Author:** ![joeyk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/joeyk/32/11164_2.png) [@joeyk](https://forum.mautic.org/u/joeyk)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 2:50pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/2 "2025-07-22T14:50:06Z")
Hello Miki, It’s weird, that first it saves right, then get’s transformed. But I think there is an issue with the DB encoding. Can you please check the encoding? ```auto SELECT COLUMN_NAME, CHARACTER_SET_NAME, COLLATION_NAME FROM information_schema.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'mauticdb' AND TABLE_NAME = 'emails' AND DATA_TYPE IN ('char', 'varchar', 'text'); ``` you need to adjust db name, and table name if you have a prefix. Jozsef ---
**Author:** ![miklosjobbagy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/miklosjobbagy/32/13296_2.png) [@miklosjobbagy](https://forum.mautic.org/u/miklosjobbagy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 5:57am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/3 "2025-07-23T05:57:37Z")
Thank you for your quick answer Jozsef! I am not a programmer, can you explain how to run this command? Where should I put db name and table name? I would really appreciate if you could help me, I will share my desktop with anydesk . Can we do this? I guess its 2 miniutes for you, for me its google-ing and struggling for hours… I appreciate, thank you!!! Mike ---
**Author:** ![joeyk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/joeyk/32/11164_2.png) [@joeyk](https://forum.mautic.org/u/joeyk)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 9:10am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/4 "2025-07-23T09:10:44Z")
Hello Mike, You need to execute this command in your mysql. Do you have console access? Joey ---
**Author:** ![miklosjobbagy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/miklosjobbagy/32/13296_2.png) [@miklosjobbagy](https://forum.mautic.org/u/miklosjobbagy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 9:28am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/5 "2025-07-23T09:28:50Z")
I give you my phpmyadmin access: [https://ingatlankapitany.hu:2083/cpsess4425802584/3rdparty/phpMyAdmin/index.php](https://ingatlankapitany.hu:2083/cpsess4425802584/3rdparty/phpMyAdmin/index.php) Give me a phone number and I text you the ID/pw. ---
**Author:** ![joeyk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/joeyk/32/11164_2.png) [@joeyk](https://forum.mautic.org/u/joeyk)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 9:40am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/6 "2025-07-23T09:40:09Z")
I can only check with console access. Who installed this Mautic for you? ---
**Author:** ![miklosjobbagy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/miklosjobbagy/32/13296_2.png) [@miklosjobbagy](https://forum.mautic.org/u/miklosjobbagy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 10:12am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/7 "2025-07-23T10:12:36Z")
I did 🙂 My provider gave me access through cPanel. If you can send me a link on how can I created a consol access for you, I will do it. ---
**Author:** ![miklosjobbagy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/miklosjobbagy/32/13296_2.png) [@miklosjobbagy](https://forum.mautic.org/u/miklosjobbagy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/8 "2025-07-23T12:59:31Z")
Okay, I created an access for you. My mautic is here: [https://mautic.ingatlankapitany.hu](https://mautic.ingatlankapitany.hu) I do not have a clue how to reach mysql through a console - you might now. You can login with these credentials: USER: redacted PW: redacted Let me know when you finished, so I can delete this user. I really appreciate your help! Thank you! By the way, I run a blog webite under [https://ingatlankapitany.hu](https://ingatlankapitany.hu), and I have no issues with the Hungarian chars… ---
**Author:** ![joeyk](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/joeyk/32/11164_2.png) [@joeyk](https://forum.mautic.org/u/joeyk)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/9 "2025-07-23T13:14:15Z")
Hi, I asked you why who installed Mautic, because the person who installed Mautic (Hopefully not through softaculus on a shared server, but properly using git or composer) made a mistake in the DB creation. If: - this is a shared server - this is not Ubuntu - this is a softaculus install - this is a docker install - you can’t give me ssh root access I cannot help you. Mautic is not a blog, it’s a very capable software. You have to install it properly on a proper server. Joey ---
**Author:** ![miklosjobbagy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/miklosjobbagy/32/13296_2.png) [@miklosjobbagy](https://forum.mautic.org/u/miklosjobbagy)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/10 "2025-07-23T13:44:07Z")
Thank you for your answer. I installed mautic through cpanel. it did not leave too much space for setting up the database - it created automatically. what is the wrong setting? i will try to create a new database, but I need to know what setting to use for national chars to be stored in a proper way. ---
**Author:** ![silavapi](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/silavapi/32/7424_2.png) [@silavapi](https://forum.mautic.org/u/silavapi)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 1:49pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/national-chars-substituted-with-junk-chars/36172/11 "2025-07-23T13:49:06Z")
Hi folks, I’ve redacted the username/password on this post for your own security. Please don’t post credentials publicly, as this forum is indexed by search engines.