Question Users cannot insert emoticons from mobile device keyboard

Look in the structure of the table the text is in utf8_general_ci. How do the emojs look like when its in the text of the message.

Well, I learned something today. That shows me that the column message is indeed utf8_general_ci, utf8 encoded, despite the table collation being utf8mb4_unicode_ci.

Before I start jumping ahead here, I would like to know if that is the default setting by Kunena or the result of our migration from SMF. In SMF, by the way, inserting emoticons from a local device keyboard worked fine. Albeit, it wasn't used very often.

What do I need to watch out for if I decide to go ahead and convert the encoding to utf8mb4_unicode_ci? I read somewhere, that converting between incompatible sets may result in data loss.

Regarding your question of what the emotes look like: it's impossible to tell. Messages with such emotes are simply rejected and the user receives a general error message: "Kunena internal error: please enable debug modus and report the issue to your forum administrator" (my translation from the Dutch text shown in a screenshot). In the backend I get the message from the opening post.

Here is my settings:
CREATE TABLE `zoc_kunena_messages_text` (
`mesid` int(11) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`message` text CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

As you see message text character set is utf8 and thats the problem with emoticons that need multibyte.
Read also this post:
github.com/Kunena/Kunena-Forum/issues/3805

@Slacker, thanks for your help. You pointed me to the root of the problem. But your code snippet isn't very helpful. I know how to create a table with the correct encoding and collation. What I need is advice on changing the encoding/collation of a column in an existing table.

In that respect I agree with last comment in the issue you pointed out. Database maintenance/migration should be handled by Kunena itself. Since the issue in GitHub is almost two years old, I would really like to hear from a Kunena developer (or at least one of the moderators here) why the encoding is still utf8 and thus Kunena does not support "local" emoticons.

If you install Kunena new, it creates the tables with the collation which you have set as default in your database. If you want afterwards to change it, you must do it yourself.

What I need is advice on changing the encoding/collation of a column in an existing table.

Should work with phpMyAdmin (click on table -> Operations) but it will change it for all columns, and I've no idea whether is correct if you only for single table changes the collation.

If you install Kunena new, it creates the tables with the collation which you have set as default in your database. If you want afterwards to change it, you must do it yourself.

I checked the defaults and they neither agree with the table collation nor with the encoding of the column in the table:

Moreover, is it wise to create tables with the default settings? The application knows best what it needs based on what it needs to support. So, shouldn't the tables and/or columns be created according to the needs of the application?

Should work with phpMyAdmin (click on table -> Operations) but it will change it for all columns, and I've no idea whether is correct if you only for single table changes the collation.

The thing is the collation setting for the table is correct. It's set to utf8mb4_unicode_ci. The column in the table, though, uses a different collation, namely utf8_general_ci. That's why local emotes cannot be inserted.

Should I rather open a bug in GitHub, so one of the developers can chime in and hopefully provide some insights?