“Incorrect string value” when trying to insert UTF-8 into MySQL via JDBC?

Question

This is how my connection is set:
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url + dbName + \"?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf-8\", userName, password

Answer 1

Hint: On AWS RDS you need a new Parameter Group for your MySQL DB with the params (instead of editing a my.cnf)

• collation_connection: utf8mb4_unicode_ci
• collation_database: utf8mb4_unicode_ci
• collation_server: utf8mb4_unicode_ci
• character_set_client: utf8mb4
• character_set_connection: utf8mb4
• character_set_database: utf8mb4
• character_set_results: utf8mb4
• character_set_server: utf8mb4

Note: character_set_system stays "utf8"

These SQL commands do NOT WORK PERMANENTLY - only in a session:

set character_set_server = utf8mb4;
set collation_server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci;