How To: Fix Unknown collation: 'utf8_unicode_520_ci'

  • Updated on Apr 13, 2026
  • Published on Apr 7, 2026
  • 1 minute(s) read
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On some rare instances, a MySQL instance may not support the collation: 'utf8_unicode_520_ci', and website / database errors may be observed. This can easily be fixed by running a simple SED command on the database via SSH, before importing it to MySQL.

Shell
# sed -i 's/utf8_unicode_520_ci/utf8_unicode_ci/g'database.sql

(Where database.sql is the name of the database file)


If you aren't confident executing commands via SSH, you can simply open the database.sql file in a Text Editor and use the 'Find and Replace' tool. 

Text
Find: utf8_unicode_520_ci
Replace: uft8_unicode_ci



Once all instances of utf8_unicode_520_ci have been replaced with utf8_unicode_ci, you should then be able to import the database into cPanel as normal.