Hello,

The screenshot you added is a warning regarding UTF-8 support in MySQL. MySQL <= 5.6 (or MariaDB <= 10.1) do not natively support utf8mb4 without restricting index key lengths. If you enable utf8mb4 in these versions, migrations will result in errors because some of our indices are simply longer than the 767 bytes in utf8mb4. In UTF-8, all indices are short enough.

The essence is:

When you run MySQL 5.7 -> Use utf8mb4 encoding for new OpenProject installations, otherwise UTF-8

When you use UTF-8 -> Some UTF-8 characters cannot be processed by MySQL and result in an error (typical cases for are emojis, certain cyrillic characters, for example)

When you have run OpenProject in the past with UTF-8, you'll either need to stick with it or migrate your database. There are a few guides out there on how to do that. It's very unfortunate, but in the end it's MySQL's fault for selling their UTF-8 encoding as something not fully UTF-8 compatible.

Regarding accessibility of the application:

could you append the output of /var/log/openporject/*.log ?

Best,

Oliver

Hello,

I restore yesterday the Release: 7.4.7 back.  To reproduce the installation 8.0.0, I have installed the version today 8.0.0 again.

Same Installation steps:

1. Update the reference to stable/7 in /etc/yum.repos.d/openproject.repo to stable/8
2. sudo yum update openproject
3. sudo yum install openproject
4. sudo openproject configure

The warning "OpenProject requires UTF-8 encoding set on MySQL < 5.7 ....." comes again.

But this time the installation 8.0.0 worked fine. Login,  other functions are OK.

My question is: What disadvantages arise when the OpenProject installation 8.0.0 runs with this warning.

• Do we get problems with special characters like ÖöÜü ß etc.
• Limitations with string sizes.
• ...

Configurations:

Installed MYSQL Version:

• mysql  Ver 15.1 Distrib 5.5.60-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1

File: opt/openproject/config/database.yml

<% url = ENV.fetch('DATABASE_URL') %>
production:
  url: <%= url %>
  <% if url.start_with? 'mysql' %>
  reconnect: true
  variables:
    # These are the default MySql Modes for rails 5.0 only excluding
    # ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY which would interfere with the current implementation
    # of the query grouping by custom fields.
    sql_mode: "no_auto_value_on_zero,strict_trans_tables,strict_all_tables,no_zero_in_date,no_zero_date,error_for_division_by_zero,no_auto_create_user,no_engine_substitution"
  <% end %>

Production.log

W, [2018-09-19T19:38:31.253471 #25119]  WARN -- : [auth_saml] Missing settings from '/opt/openproject/config/plugins/auth_saml/settings.yml', skipping omniauth registration.
W, [2018-09-19T19:38:31.257864 #25121]  WARN -- : hook registered
W, [2018-09-19T19:38:31.446627 #25119]  WARN -- : hook registered
W, [2018-09-19T19:38:32.942214 #25121]  WARN -- : Creating scope :order_by_name. Overwriting existing method Sprint.order_by_name.
W, [2018-09-19T19:38:32.958128 #25119]  WARN -- : Creating scope :order_by_name. Overwriting existing method Sprint.order_by_name.
W, [2018-09-19T19:39:33.742909 #25192]  WARN -- : Scoped order is ignored, it's forced to be batch order.
W, [2018-09-19T19:39:33.747692 #25192]  WARN -- : Scoped order is ignored, it's forced to be batch order.
W, [2018-09-19T19:39:33.750912 #25192]  WARN -- : Scoped order is ignored, it's forced to be batch order.
W, [2018-09-19T19:55:08.516178 #25346]  WARN -- : [auth_saml] Missing settings from '/opt/openproject/config/plugins/auth_saml/settings.yml', skipping omniauth registration.
W, [2018-09-19T19:55:08.650862 #25346]  WARN -- : hook registered

Database

Thanks,

o.t.

Hello o.t.,

actually, MySQL installations with OpenProject have always run with utf8 encoding in the past, so the warning is only a result of the bug reports we have received from users that run into issues with utf8. It has no other effect and if you wish you can silence it with openproject config:set OPENPROJECT_SKIP_MYSQL_ENCODING_CHECK=true

Short version: In MySQL, utf8 encoding has only allowed UTF-8 characters of up to three bytes since around ~2003, likely for performance and space optimization. However, emojis and certain character sets (Cyrillic we know of due to ticket ) will not be accepted by MySQL with this encoding. This will result in OpenProject raising an internal error when trying to submit text with these characters.

A switch to utf8mb4 is possible for MySQL versions > 5.7 due to other issues with Index key lengths in the utf8mb4 encoding. However, this requires manual effort on the DBA side that we cannot automate well.

Regarding the warning: If you freshly install OpenProject on MySQL versions 5.7. and above, use the utf8mb4 encoding and you'll be fine!

I would suggest reading this article if you're interested in the details: https://medium.com/@adamhooper/in-mysql-never-use-utf8-use-utf8mb4-11761243e434

Best,

Oliver