title: Not all character sets and collation sets change to utf8mb4(.unicode.ci)
body: <p>I am trying to set <em>character sets</em> to utf8mb4 and <em>collation sets</em> to utf8mb4_unicode_ci. On my website the emoji's looks fine when I get the data out of the table with php/mysql <code>select</code>. Only in phpMyAdmin (4.8.4) I see most emoji's as one questionamrk.</p>
  
  <p>I try this:</p>
  
  <p>Add to <code>/etc/my.cnf</code>:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[client]
  default-character-set = utf8mb4
  
  [mysql]
  default-character-set = utf8mb4
  
  [mysqld]
  character-set-client-handshake = FALSE
  character-set-server = utf8mb4
  collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Restart <code>systemctl restart mariadb</code></p>
  
  <p>I use on my website <code>mysqli_set_charset($con, "utf8mb4");</code>, <code>&lt;form accept-charset="UTF-8"&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;meta charset="utf-8"&gt;</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Result of <code>SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_name LIKE 'character\_set\_%' OR Variable_name LIKE 'collation%'</code>:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/P0ERE.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/P0ERE.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong?</p>
  
  <p>I use mysql version 5.5.60 (Mariadb).</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit:</strong>
  The problem might be phpmyadmin (4.8.4).  It seems that phpMyAdmin is still using utf8. The global variabelen are set to utf8mb4 or utf8mb4_unicode_ci but I can't change the session variabelen:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/snx4Q.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/snx4Q.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>I set in config.inc.php:
  <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/McSSv.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/McSSv.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>In the 'normal' table in phpMyAdmin:
  <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/CJj3k.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/CJj3k.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>And when I try <code>SET NAMES</code> everything looks fine:
  <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/5vRMQ.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/5vRMQ.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>Under General settings in phpMyAdmin the server connection collation is set on <code>utf8_unicode_ci</code>. I can select <code>utf8mb4_unicode_ci</code>, but then it switches back to <code>utf8_unicode_ci</code> :(</p>
  
  <p>And on my website with <code>select</code> everything looks oké:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HWhyh.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HWhyh.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>