Problem with Ajax Search 1.7

I am currently use modx 0.9.6 Just updated to ajaxsearch to 1.7. when I perform a search
It said, "database_connection_charset is null. Check your config file"

My ajaxsearch call is [!AjaxSearch? ajaxSearch=`1` &AS_showResults=`1` &AS_landing=`8` &showMoreResults=`1` &moreResultsPage=`8` &extract=`0` &addJscript=`1` &ajaxSearchType=`1` &showMoreResult=`1` &ajaxMax=`5` !]

Why would that happen?

Hi qm777,

I am still writing the wiki documentation (coming soon) . Here is the extract regarding the errors messages of the version 1.7:

==Error messages==

means that the snippet code in the manager is not properly installed or has changed and doesn’t fit with the snippet source folder (includes/snippet.ajaxSearch.inc.php)

means that you the version of the snippet code in the manager doesn’t fit with the version of the snippet source folder (includes/snippet.ajaxSearch.inc.php)

means that the snippet code in the manager is not properly installed or has changed and doesn’t fit with the snippet source folder (includes/snippet.ajaxSearch.inc.php)

means that your version of the snippet source folder (includes/snippet.ajaxSearch.inc.php) doesn’t fit with the js/ajaxSearch.js file

means that your $database_connection_charset variable of your /manager/includes/config.inc.php file should be set

means that your $database_connection_charset variable of your /manager/includes/config.inc.php file is an empty value

is not an error but need that you add in the ajaxSearch.php file the mapping between the mysql database charset and the html charset. e.g: ’latin1’ => ’ISO-8859-1’,


Tell me if these explanations are insufficient or inadequate.

The latest versions of MODx specify the connect charset of your database and AjaxSearch now uses that. It solves a lot of problems with searching text with various non-Western characters. You’ll need to add a line to your config.inc.php file if it’s not already there:

and put the proper connection for your database.

The user comments on this page have a great deal of interesting material on this subject.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-connection.html
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/charset-charsets.html

WARNING: After setting the database_connection_charset to utf8 on an installation without an database_connection_charset everything in the backend retrieved from the database could show utf8-decoded chars for utf8-encoded chars before. Maybe it will happen only on installations with TinyMCE set to ’raw’. It could be solved i.e. by export/patch/import the data via phpMyAdmin.

Thanks for that, nice

Have a problem with this right now. Whar Charset to use? utf8_general_ci was unknown (got it from phpmyadmin). Is it just utf8 then?

utf8_general_ci is the charset collation. utf8 the charset.

So, if the charset of your database is utf8, put ’utf8’ as value for the $database_connection_charset variable inside the /manager/includes/config.inc.php file.

It doesnt work couse it mess up my swedish characters åäö/ÅÄÖ

(Or in some places anyway like some names in the document menu)

If you change the charset of an existing database the special characters will be broken. I have found that sometimes you can fix this by exporting as a new charset from some versions of phpmyadmin and then re importing as the new charset. However this does not work for all field types, it seems to only work on text fields and not in varchar fields so stuff like page titles and long titles will need to be re entered. You can also try a code editor and do find/replace to the sql file, this can work but is scetchy (make sure to have a back up just in case).

Just to remember: He did not change the database-charset itself. He changed the database-connection-charset of MODx to the database. This causes the problems with the unicode chars in his installation (same for me at two different german ISP).

This behaviour could be a bigger issue for upgrading unicode-MODx installations when AS 1.7+ will be standard in next versions of MODx.

My solution is to export my database (by phpMyAdmin) to sql-text, search & replace the wrong coded chars and reimport the sql-text in the database.