Not able to insert arbitrary binary data / invalid UTF8 characters into a VARCHAR column

[Xiaoming Pan]

We have a VARCHAR(255) column using collation utf8_unicode_ci in a table.

We can write arbitrary byte sequences (data that contains invalid UTF8 character sequences) using INSERT or UPDATE statements in MySQL 5.7.43. However, we get errors while performing the same actions with the same configurations (character set utf8mb3 collate utf8mb3_unicode_ci) in MySQL 8.0.33.

For example, I’ve tried the following

INSERT INTO data_tests (data) VALUES (0xED\xA0\xBC\xED\xB7\xA9\xED\xA0\xBC\xED\xB7\xAA);

In MySQL 5.7.43, the arbitrary byte sequences is written into the table successfully:

Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

In MySQL 8.0.33, I get the following error:

ERROR 1366 (HY000): Incorrect string value: '\xED\xA0\xBC\xED\xB7\xA9...' for column 'data' at row 1

I also tried CONVERT( … USING UTF8) or BINARY( … ), but neither of them are working in MySQL 8.0.33.

How can I write an INSERT or UPDATE statement that bypasses the check/validation, allowing me to write arbitrary byte sequences in MySQL 8.0.33?