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Site Restoration

#42765 problem with collation error

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
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Environment Information

PHP version
8.2.0
CMS Type
Joomla!
CMS Version
5.4.3
Backup Tool Version
10.2.2
Kickstart version
9.0.2

Latest post by nicholas on Wednesday, 04 March 2026 05:24 CST

Wednesday, 04 March 2026 00:56 CST

blacknell

Hi

I'm trying to restore my production site Joomla to my MAMP environment.

I'm getting a database restore error telling me about unknown collation.

Database error processing line 11

Database server error reply:

ErrNo #1273

Unknown collation: 'utf8mb3_uca1400_ai_ci'

Raw query text:

CREATE TABLE `cob0g_sppagebuilder_addons` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `title` varchar(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `code` mediumtext NOT NULL,
  `ordering` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
  `created` datetime NOT NULL,
  `created_by` bigint(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=2 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb3 COLLATE=utf8mb3_uca1400_ai_ci

 

When I google for this, it's saying I'm trying to restore from MariaDB to mySQL. This is true

My production server is running 

  • Server version: 11.8.6-MariaDB-ubu2404 - mariadb.org binary distribution

My MAMP is running

  • Server version: 5.7.39 - MySQL Community Server (GPL)

My research recommends forcing the import collation to utf8mb3_general_ci or utf8mb3_unicode_ci. Obviously not possible for an end user.

I was hoping to find a setting to override this either in the kickstart importer or the akeeba backup generator.

Can you help me?

Wednesday, 04 March 2026 01:51 CST

nicholas

You've diagnosed the situation correctly — the utf8mb3_uca1400_ai_ci collation was introduced in MariaDB 10.10.2 and is not understood by MySQL.

The Akeeba Backup Restoration Script has built-in support for collation conversion when restoring a site backed up on MariaDB to MySQL (or vice versa). In your case, it would automatically replace uca1400_* collations with a MySQL-compatible equivalent during restoration. However, this feature is controlled by an option called "Normalise character set" in the Advanced section on the right-hand side of the Database restoration step. The default for this feature is to be disabled; you need to enable it.

Actionable item: Go back to the Database restoration step, look in the Advanced settings panel on the right, and enable the "Normalise character set" toggle. This will automatically convert MariaDB-specific collations to ones compatible with your MySQL 5.7 server. Click "Next" to proceed with the database restoration.

Side note: MySQL 5.7 is a very old version which has been end-of-life since October 2023 – that's two and a half years ago. Likewise, PHP 8.2.0 is positively ancient; PHP 8.2 is currently at version 8.2.30 and will become end-of-life in December 2026. Further to that, Joomla 6 requires at least PHP 8.3; Joomla 5.4 supports PHP 8.3 and 8.4 just fine. I believe that you are running the free version of MAMP 7 which comes with these outdated, insecure versions of MySQL and PHP. You may want to consider moving to a different local server, or using MAMP's paid (Pro) version which does allow you to upgrade to a newer PHP and MySQL version. I am putting this as a side note because it's not directly affecting your issue, but it will definitely act as a hindrance or road-block to any future attempts to upgrade your sites to a more modern Joomla version.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 04 March 2026 05:17 CST

blacknell

Thank you very much for the rapid response.

I will look in the settings as you suggest.

Your comments about versions are appreciated. The project I'm working on is to get us away from Joomla 3 on to Joomla 5.4.3 (and 6.x more likely). We had an extremely old PHP.

I am using MAMP Pro but it's 6.x and limits me to MySQL 5.x. Likewise PHP 8.2 is not what we're actually testing the migration on - its 8.4 along with MariaDB 11

Wednesday, 04 March 2026 05:24 CST

nicholas

MAMP 6 is woefully outdated. You will not be able to use Joomla 6 on it. Joomla 6 requires a newer version of both MySQL and PHP than what this old, creaky version of MAMP supports. Sorry :(

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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