mediawiki mysql mixing illegal characters when using hebrew

[Alon Swartz]

reported by: arbel
I am using the Turnkey MediaWiki's live cd, and in English every thing is going well. but when I try to use Hebrew, I get a mysql error that I am mixing illegal charecters. So I cant search and I can't link to other pages. is there a way to install Hebrew support?

[Alon Swartz (alonswartz)]

reproduced by specifying hebrew in the url (reference: http://he.wikipedia.org)

Database error
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was:

    (SQL query hidden)

from within function "Article::pageData". MySQL returned error "1267: Illegal mix of collations (latin1_bin,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,COERCIBLE) for operation '=' (localhost)".

[Alon Swartz (alonswartz)]

workaround: disable experimental charset support
    file: /etc/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php
    setting: $wgDBmysql5 = true; --> $wgDBmysql5 = false;

    example:
    sed --in-place "s/\$wgDBmysql5 = true;/\$wgDBmysql = false;/" /etc/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php

resource: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgDBmysql5
Set to true to engage MySQL 4.1/5.0 charset-related features; for now will just cause sending of 'SET NAMES=utf8' on connect.
You should not generally change this value once installed -- if you create the wiki in Binary or UTF-8 schemas, keep this on! If your wiki was created with the old "backwards-compatible UTF-8" schema, it should stay off.

This setting will be disabled in future versions while experimental.

[Alon Swartz (alonswartz)]

fixed in 2009.02 release.