wp-mojibake-repair/README.md

Mojibake Repair (Temporary)

Version 1.1.1 uses targeted replacements for Czech letters, common punctuation, symbols and nonbreaking spaces misdecoded as ISO-8859-1 or Windows-1252. It extends the serialization-safe repair introduced in version 1.1.0.

Why version 1.0.0 could break fonts

The original conversion also changed options and metadata. Theme and builder settings can contain PHP-serialized strings with embedded byte lengths. Changing the text without updating those lengths makes the settings unreadable; a theme can then fall back to default typography. Converting entire values could also damage already-correct Unicode in mixed content. WordPress documents this serialization risk in its migration guide.

Sites already repaired with version 1.0.0

1. Deactivate version 1.0.0 and save a copy of the current database.
2. Use a pre-repair backup to compare and recover affected theme/builder settings, preferably on staging first. A full database restore can discard newer content and orders, so choose the recovery scope using the site's actual changes.
3. Run the new version's preview against the restored data and review the changes. The new version prevents this serialization damage; it does not reconstruct settings already corrupted by the previous conversion.
4. After repair, clear page caches and regenerate builder CSS if the site uses it. Verify fonts and content on the site, then deactivate and remove the plugin.

Behavior and limits

• Repairs recognized mojibake sequences without transcoding whole values. Targets include Czech letters and – — ‘ ’ ‚ “ ” „ … • « » ‹ › € ™ © ® °, plus nonbreaking spaces. For example, – becomes –, ’ becomes ’, and … becomes …. Both Latin-1 and Windows-1252 forms are covered. Other corruption patterns and JSON \uXXXX escapes are outside this repair's scope. A sequence intentionally shown as a mojibake example will also match, so review the preview.
• Preserves CSS, JSON escaping, serialized keys and scalar formatting. Repairs serialized array/string values, including nested serialized strings, and recalculates their byte lengths without instantiating PHP objects.
• Leaves an entire candidate value unchanged if it contains malformed or unsupported serialization, objects, references, excessive nesting, or invalid UTF-8. The preview reports skipped counts and example row IDs. This is not a general audit of already-corrupted settings: values without a recognized mojibake sequence are left untouched without further inspection.
• Reads in batches of 200. Execution uses an InnoDB transaction and checks the exact candidate IDs and values against the signed preview. Changes since preview or write conflicts cause rollback. Old-version approvals are rejected.
• Clears the WordPress object cache after commit. External page caches and generated builder styles may still need to be refreshed separately.
• Scans the current site's fixed core-table plan. Large databases may exceed hosting request limits; batching bounds the rows loaded at once, not the total request duration or transaction size.

Local verification

Run php -l wp-mojibake-repair.php and php tests/repair.php. The regression script requires PDO SQLite and iconv. It checks Czech text, punctuation, serialized typography settings, preserved CSS/JSON, skipped unsafe values, batching, preview approvals, rollback, and cache invalidation. Database-flow checks use a SQLite adapter; they do not replace verification on WordPress/MySQL.