UTF8 some Japanese char are question marks ??

[studiotucker]

I have to say, I am surprised that I needed to add a separate file with one short line of code to get UTF8 to show correctly on all pages of the zencart platform. It's a pretty international platform and I don't understand why this can't be automatically included???

For anyone else who stumbles here looking for a solution, I followed a solution I found somewhere else and it worked.

Create a new .php file name it anything(?), I named mine "my_db_charset.php". Include in the file, one line of code <?php define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8'); save and upload to your extra-configures directory in both includes and admin/includes.

I required utf8, but I would assume that you could use any charset that you need zencart to conform to and would just replace the utf8 in the line of code with yours.

[DrByte]

I have to say, I am surprised that I needed to add a separate file with one short line of code to get UTF8 to show correctly on all pages of the zencart platform. It's a pretty international platform and I don't understand why this can't be automatically included???

It IS automatically included. For new installations, not for upgrades.

When you do a new install of Zen Cart v1.5.0 or newer, the configure.php file will already contain a define for DB_CHARSET.
If your upgrade involved doing a new install of Zen Cart, then you would also have had that automatically. But, since you chose a different approach for upgrading, you've had to apply your own bandage to get to the same end result.

[studiotucker]

Thanks Doc.