MySQL error: “Column 'columnname' cannot be part of FULLTEXT index”

Question

Recently I changed a bunch of columns to utf8_general_ci (the default UTF-8 collation) but when attempting to change a particular column, I received the MySQL error:

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Answer 1

Just to add to Thomas's good advice: And to sort things out in PHPMyAdmin you have to change the characterset for all columns AT THE SAME TIME.

Just wasted half a day trying again and again to change the columns one at a time and continually getting the error message about the FULLTEXT index.