Mysql - Mysql2::Error: Incorrect string value:

Question

So I built a scraper and am pulling in some objects. The issue is some are foreign languages and it is tripping the mysql db up a bit. This is the error I got. Any idea what I c

Answer 1

Probably your table is set to a non Utf8 CHARACTER SET. You can change this with this sql:

ALTER TABLE `your_database_name`.`your_table` CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8

Answer 2

You can find the answer here. I am not sure how to report duplicate. Mysql2::Error: Incorrect string value Rails 3 UTF8

For your convenience, let me reiterate my answer

---

I had encountered this issue recently. It's essentially mysql default collation type is not utf8_unicode_ci.

Do the following. Backup your data if you have to. I had to drop the database and recreate it

rake db:drop
rake db:create

Change mysql database collation to utf8_unicode_ci ( phpMyAdmin might come in handy here) Finally, restore your migration.

rake db:migrate

Enjoy.

Answer 3

This can also be triggered if the string you're trying to insert has invalid UTF-8 byte sequences. For example, in ruby you can remove any invalid characters using

string_with_invalid_sequences.encode('utf-8', 'binary', invalid: :replace, undef: :replace, replace: '')

String#scrub can be used in ruby 2.1 onwards

string_with_invalid_sequences.scrub