# Joomla 1.5 and MariaDb – Collation problem

We found the hard way that all Joomla 1.5 ( yes there are still joomla 1.5 ) have problem with the collation of the database when you use UTF 8 characters . After several experiments with collation we found in some blogs that the anwer is pretty easy. You have to change a line in the mysqli file in Joomla.

**in libraries/joomla/database/database/mysql.php**

or (depending on your setting)

**libraries/joomla/database/database/mysqli.php**

**comment the line 186**

return ($verParts\[0\] == 5 || ($verParts\[0\] == 4 && $verParts\[1\] == 1 && (int)$verParts\[2\] >= 2));

**and add this instead (assuming these days you’ll have unicode supported database):**

return 1;

**the code looks like:**

function hasUTF()  
{  
$verParts = explode( ‘.’, $this->getVersion() );  
// return ($verParts\[0\] == 5 || ($verParts\[0\] == 4 && $verParts\[1\] == 1 && (int)$verParts\[2\] >= 2));  
return (1);  
}