Russian Language characters showing as ????? chars

Hi,

I am working on my russian web site now and It will be completely russian site(no choice of language), admin is in english. The problem is: I can't find php editor, that would show me russian characters. Everything is working perfectly fine in browser, but to edit things, I don't see characters...I use Vista English as my local PC. Tried around 7 editors, that suppose to work with rtf-8 codes, but nothing works, I get this:

Äèñêîíòíûå êàðòî÷êè

Any help will be appreciated...
TIA

And second issue that I faced is I can't get into admin now. I get blank page:-(I just installed Russian as default language and Russian currency, nothing else. As I mentioned before , Russian is only in includes/languages/ ,not in admin...

And another thing I have problem with is if I write russian letters in a description of the product when I add new product into catalog, I get ????? instead of letters. Is there and issue with coding in database? Maybe someone knows how to change it in phpmyadmin?

TIA

Hi,

I am working on my russian web site now and It will be completely russian site(no choice of language), admin is in english. The problem is: I can't find php editor, that would show me russian characters. Everything is working perfectly fine in browser, but to edit things, I don't see characters...I use Vista English as my local PC. Tried around 7 editors, that suppose to work with rtf-8 codes, but nothing works, I get this:

Äèñêîíòíûå êàðòî÷êè

And second issue that I faced is I can't get into admin now. I get blank page:-(I just installed Russian as default language and Russian currency, nothing else. As I mentioned before , Russian is only in includes/languages/ ,not in admin...

And another thing I have problem with is if I write russian letters in a description of the product when I add new product into catalog, I get ????? instead of letters. Is there and issue with coding in database? Maybe someone knows how to change it in phpmyadmin?

TIA
Ms_X

Ms,
Take a look at this tutorial page to read:

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=82

Or the beauty of Zen Cart is look at the Cache Folder in the root directory to find the error log...

thanks for response, I have read tute...I am attching an image where read shows that some words are translated ok, some(green) not. I tried all types of charsets,at the moment:

@setlocale(LC_TIME, 'ru.utf8');

define('CHARSET', 'windows-1251');

if i change charset to utf-8, everything is translated to some symbols...I did not create database using utf-8 codding in this case. I have done a new instalation though using this tutorial:

srw2d.com/sites/default/files/utf-8-zen-cartV1.3.8.pdf

But could not change code in query factory, when i changed the code, instalation process did not work...In this case nothing is translated at all even though I have changed everywhere setlocale and charset.I use latest zencart version...:-(

here is the image

Today I started all new again. Here what I did:

1. Followed the instructions listed here http://www.srw2d.com/sites/default/files/utf-8-zen-cartV1.3.8.pdf

except of not changing the query_factory.php file but doing this:

Create a new file for it:
/includes/extra_configures/my_db_charset.php
Code:

<?php define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf-8'); 2)I have followed all the instructions in the link above and verified that my site was all being sent to the browsers in UTF8, I started to install Russian language pack . After installing the language website was all looking fine and in russian. Then I decided to test if russian characters were being inserted into the database correctly, I created a test category with a russian name (in admin section) but then on the site's catalog side I see this category name listed as a bunch of ?????. So the question is what to do now? I looked in phpmyadmin, when i see the structure of my database, all the tables collation is set to "latin1_general_ci" and at the end of the list on the last row (where one can see the number of pages) I see in collation field "utf8_general_ci" And I wanted to ask another(a bit stupid question:-)): the name my_db_charset.php should be written as my_db_charset.php or instead of my_db the name of my db should be written? Thanks for replies...

Today I started all new again. Here what I did:

1. Followed the instructions listed here http://www.srw2d.com/sites/default/files/utf-8-zen-cartV1.3.8.pdf

except of not changing the query_factory.php file but doing this:

Create a new file for it:
/includes/extra_configures/my_db_charset.php
Code:

<?php define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf-8'); 2)I have followed all the instructions in the link above and verified that my site was all being sent to the browsers in UTF8, I started to install Russian language pack . After installing the language website was all looking fine and in russian. Then I decided to test if russian characters were being inserted into the database correctly, I created a test category with a russian name (in admin section) but then on the site's catalog side I see this category name listed as a bunch of ?????. So the question is what to do now? I looked in phpmyadmin, when i see the structure of my database, all the tables collation is set to "latin1_general_ci" and at the end of the list on the last row (where one can see the number of pages) I see in collation field "utf8_general_ci" And I wanted to ask another(a bit stupid question:-)): the name my_db_charset.php should be written as my_db_charset.php or instead of my_db the name of my db should be written? Thanks for replies...

and another question, do I need to save any fileas as without BOM?I am so much confused now after reading a lots of posts here and trying to figure out the truth...

P.s:I am at the moment using my local PC(localhost for testing) and latest version of zencart

and another question, do I need to save any fileas as without BOM?I am so much confused now after reading a lots of posts here and trying to figure out the truth...

P.s:I am at the moment using my local PC(localhost for testing) and latest version of zencart

Ms_X:

Create a new file for it:
/includes/extra_configures/my_db_charset.php
Code:

<?php define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf-8');Be sure to do that in your /RENAMED-ADMIN/includes/extra_configures folder too!!!!!

If you don't, then your admin activity won't be treated as utf-8.

Ms_X:

So the question is what to do now? I looked in phpmyadmin, when i see the structure of my database, all the tables collation is set to "latin1_general_ci" and at the end of the list on the last row (where one can see the number of pages) I see in collation field "utf8_general_ci".Well, I guess that's possible if you hadn't set the /zc_install/includes/installer_params.php file to use utf-8 as well:```

<?php define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8'); ``` I'm pretty sure you want to use "utf8", not "utf-8" when it comes to the DB_CHARSET. I think using "utf-8" would apply only in the language file. > **Ms\_X:** > > the name my_db_charset.php should be written as my_db_charset.php or instead of my_db the name of my db should be written?The filename doesn't matter. It could be called "fred.php" as long as the content inside is correct. > **Ms\_X:** > > and another question, do I need to save any fileas as without BOM? Yes. ALL files that contain utf-8 encoding in them need to be saved as UTF8-without-BOM.

Responded to your questions here: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1002758#post1002758

Thanks a lot for your response, Dr. Byte,

I am now installing new fresh zencart using your advice and that article. I just set the /zc_install/includes/installer_params.php file to use utf-8 as well:

<?php define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8'); and when i started intallation process of zen cart I got Bad Getway Error. But when I changed installer_params.php file back to what was there originally, I see Instalation page. Any suggestions on what should I do now?:-(I guess the problem is somewhere here that my russian characters displayed as question marks. I am looking im Mysl forums as well to find the answer,but unfortunately no results yet:-(

Sorry for saying I could not install it before. I just restarted my server and refreshed cash. Everything installed and on web site everything is shown in russian. Database tables are all set to utf_8_general_ci. Now I have different problem:When I add category or product in russian, after i save it, it is shown on the websites catalogue site as no name product like on the attached picture...

If I write using latin alphabet then i see the names of the products...So there must be a problem with russian characters then:-(

here some setting of the russian file:

@setlocale(LC_TIME, 'ru.utf8');
....

// charset for web pages and emails
define('CHARSET', 'windows-1251');

If I change to:
define('CHARSET', 'utf-8');

I get site translated the way that i see instead of russian words the ??? inside black diamonds. When do i need to convert files to utf without bom?before insyallation or after?i did not do it yet...

I was just thinking if this problem could occur because te old version of PHP and mysql?I have MySQL 5.0.45 and PHP/5.2.4 installed...

Ms_X:

When do i need to convert files to utf without bom?before insyallation or after?i did not do it yet...Either is fine. Before is okay. After is okay.

Ms_X:

I was just thinking if this problem could occur because te old version of PHP and mysql?I have MySQL 5.0.45 and PHP/5.2.4 installed...
MySQL version is unlikely to be a problem.

If you have the ability to use PHP 5.3 it might help.