Emoji: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' error

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Emoji: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' error

Post by admin »

Note: if you try to post a message and you get an error a bit like one of these:

Code: Select all

Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' for column 'post_text' at row 1 [1366]
Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x81' for column 'draft_message' at row 1 [1366]


then you probably inserted an "emoji" character (like a smiley face) from your tablet or phone's on-screen keyboard. The database cannot handle these special four-byte characters, yet.

We are investigating a fix for this.

Update: phpBB3 version 3.2 should be able to handle emoji characters. We're currently running phpBB 3.0, but hope to upgrade to 3.1 early in 2016, and to 3.2 as soon as we can (it is not yet released).
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Re: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' error

Post by gaz »

Whilst I am well aware that I don't really understand these things, there are quite a number of emoji's displaying perfectly well on the forum.

Image Image Image Posted by cheating, I don't have an emoji enabled device :wink: .

Heltor Chasca is a frequent user.

Are some emoji more compatible than others?
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Re: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' error

Post by admin »

Those particular "emoji"s you posted aren't in fact unicode emoji characters, they're images provided by Tapatalk. Embedded images are always fine. :)

Real emojis are actual unicode text characters, not images. How they appear will depend on the glyph shapes defined by the font used to render the text. Many older Western fonts don't have glyphs defined for these Japanese emoji characters, but modern Android and iOS fonts now tend to.

Any emoji or character from the unicode character set that uses three bytes or fewer is fine. The problem only occurs for emojis that use four bytes per character.

Here's a handy reference list: http://apps.timwhitlock.info/emoji/tables/unicode

If you look in the "bytes" column you can see how many bytes the character uses by counting the "\xNN" sequences (each one represents a byte in hexadecimal notation). On this page you can see that the "emoticon" group are all four bytes, and thus not supported by this forum (yet). The dingbats group are OK, most of the others aren't.
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Graham
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Do not use EMOJIs on this forum

Post by Graham »

. . . otherwise you may encounter this sort of persistent ERROR when you try to post

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]
Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x81' for column 'draft_message' at row 1 [1366]
An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.
Please notify the board administrator or webmaster: mbadmin@ctc.org.uk


Workaround is easy: do not use "emoji" characters.

Fix is very non-trivial, as it requires modifications to the database to
handle four-byte extended Unicode characters, which it doesn't by
default. Three bytes is plenty of every written language in the whole
world, and no-one thought we'd ever need four bytes until Apple picked
up the Japanese craze for emojis!
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Re: Do not use EMOJIs on this forum

Post by Audax67 »

Graham wrote:Three bytes is plenty of every written language in the whole
world, and no-one thought we'd ever need four bytes until Apple picked
up the Japanese craze for emojis!


Marketing, innit? No emojis = reduced sales in Japan. Craze + emojis = lolly.
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Re: Do not use EMOJIs on this forum

Post by TonyR »

:D :) :( :o :shock: :? 8) :lol: :x :P :oops: :cry: :evil: :twisted: :roll: :wink: :|
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Re: Do not use EMOJIs on this forum

Post by Paulatic »

TonyR wrote::D :) :( :o :shock: :? 8) :lol: :x :P :oops: :cry: :evil: :twisted: :roll: :wink: :|

So I'm seeing them....[emoji108]but others aren't is this what's bring said?
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Re: Emoji: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' error

Post by Graham »

Er, like Anthony said above . . . . .

PS. I started a new topic because I could not find the existing one. The existing one is now a "sticky" . . maybe it always was . . . :oops:
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Re: Emoji: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' error

Post by CREPELLO »

I just can't click emoji's. The cursor doesn't respond when hovered over them. Puter says 'smilies are on'.
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Re: Emoji: Incorrect string value: '\xF0\x9F\x98\x84' error

Post by admin »

What web browser are you using? (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Vivaldi, etc.)

When you click on a smilie on the right, you should get something like :D or :oops: added to the text. These get replaced by the smilie icon when you save.
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