The database collation 'utf8_bin' and table collation 'utf8_bin' are not supported by JIRA.

Question

I followed the guides to properly set up a MySQL database for Jira. The database uses character set utf8_bin and so do all tables. Yet, when I go into my Jira dashboard I get an error saying a collation health check failed. When I look at the error it says that the database collation utf8_bin and table collation utf8_bin are not supported... but those are the collations that the guide mentions I should be using!

Andy Heinzer · Answer

Technically, no it is not mandatory.  You can still use MySQL 5.6.x with Jira 8.1.x per our supported platforms page.  However we know the character limitation in that version of MySQL has been a thorn in the sides of Jira administrators for a long time a la JRASERVER-36135.  So I would still recommend going to a 5.7 version to avoid that problem entirely.

Luke Gavel · Answer

So, upgrading from MySQL v5.6 to v5.7 to support v8.1.0 isn't mandatory?

Andy Heinzer · Answer

@Luke Gavel It depends on the version of MySQL you're using on the backend.  If you're using a MySQL 5.7.x with a Jira 8.x.x version, then our own documentation (Connecting Jira 8 applications to MySQL 5.7) recommends to use the utf8mb4 character set and collation because we know it will help you avoid the problem of mysql's inability to store 4 byte characters such as emojis when using the standard utf8/utf8_bin settings.

But if you look at the MySQL 5.6 doc in https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/connecting-jira-applications-to-mysql-5-6-938846854.html

We still recommend the utf8 instead in the case of MySQL 5.6.x databases.  That still leaves these version susceptible to being unable to store those characters though.  I think this is because Jira versions before 8 have not been tested with that collation/encoding in the older versions of MySQL before 5.7.