When using the News app, there’s this constant alert like text that my database is not UTF-8 and there’s a link on how to convert it to uft8mb4. Now this link takes me to this: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/12/admin_manual/configuration_database/mysql_4byte_support.html where I read that for MariaDB This is even more experimental. It probably means that it’s experimental for MySQL as well.
This alert is also covering a large portion of the screen when going to NC web site on mobile phone, in portrait mode and makes selection of other apps impossible.
So why would someone running stable version of NC would want to use experimental feature? Even if one would want to try it, can’t it be changed to an alert that appears once in a while, and not permanently?
Is this a News app issue only?
Thanks
Because feed updates break without it. This issue also affects other apps: want to add a calendar entry with an emoji? Or contact? Try it on your installation and see what happens 
If you do not want experimental features, why not switch to postgres?
So I’m running with MariaDB (and MySQL before my Debian upgrade) for some time now and I did not have any feed update breaks.
Regarding the switch to postgres, note that MySQL/MariaDB is the recommended database for Nextcloud, as per: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/12/admin_manual/installation/system_requirements.html#recommended-setup-for-running-nextcloud
The main rant was about this alert, which is covering up other things when viewing the web on mobile phone in portrait mode.
I totally agree that there should not be the need to have utf8 support in database, nor switch to postgres for running all apps without mentioned errors. Some kind of internal workaround should be done within the apps, if possible.
MySQL=MariaDB by default on many distros e.g. Debian since stretch (mysql-server is meta package for mariadb-server there) and MySQL is recommended by admin manual and used as default database on most 3rd party automated Nextcloud installations which do on the other hand not always necessary utf8 adjustments to database, barracuda e.g.
@mehturt it has worked fine for you until now. Just migrate your database to a sane setting or use a different Charset like everyone else did and make a backup. 4byte utf8 works fine on MariaDB
Some kind of internal workaround should be done within the apps, if possible.
The internal workaround would be to drop everything in the 4th byte unicode range which has to be done for every text field when both saving and validating (like your folder name input). Given that this has to be done for every other app as well, this fix is unlikely.
You’ve been using a broken setup from the start, why do you argue about it rather than fix it?
Okay, yeah that fix indeed is not appropriate.
Nextcloud with default MariaDB installation is not broken, at least it is not mentioned within admin manual that utf8 support is needed for Nextcloud to run properly. I always understood it as some additional feature. However I applied it since long time in my instance, just wanted to mention that for now many guides and 3rd party installation scripts do not contain it. Maybe then it should be highlighted in admin manual, maybe as check and warning on admin panel as well.
Yeah, the setup sometimes defaults to utf8 for whatever reason
If all works fine, why is it marked as experimental in the admin guide. That’s the only thing I was concerned about.
I will give it a try though.
My guess is that docs are not up to date (no one really cares)