Re: Weird utf-8 encoding problem using webserver that does not occur in command line client

[Rick James]

Interesting puzzle.
Perhaps it assumes the CHAR(...) is just a bunch of bytes, yet the substr is delivering utf8.

Ponder this:

mysql> SELECT CHAR_LENGTH(CONVERT(CHAR(50603) USING utf8));
+----------------------------------------------+
| CHAR_LENGTH(CONVERT(CHAR(50603) USING utf8)) |
+----------------------------------------------+
|                                            1 |
+----------------------------------------------+

and let me know if that helps solve your puzzle.