The header chunks for each template (main site and context sites) state <meta charset="[[++modx_charset:lcase]]" />, which always translates to <meta charset="utf-8" />.
config.core.php says connection charset = utf8
database dsn says charset = utf8
phpmyAdmin and bob's guides produced a working utf-8 vharset and utf8-general-ci for all tables and columns
this is all with #modx 2.2.1-dev...and everything was fine with 2.1.5 and the goal was to fix filemanager_path/url issues with contexts, which I've been told are flaky in general...by a modx EXPERT
worst case if no inspiration strikes I will make separate clean/full modx installs for each site I must do this weekend...
Thank you, Tom
[ed. note: TomMLS last edited this post 12 years, 3 months ago.]