MySQL failed to initialize character set problem

If you have a character set problem, you may experience the following error:

MySQL Connection failed: Unable to initialize character set Charset_name.

Cause of this error:

• The character set is a multibyte character set, but the character set is not supported by the client. In that case, you need to run configure with the--with-charset=charset_name or--with-extra-charsets=charset_name option to recompile the client.

All of the standard MySQL binaries are compiled with "--with-extra-character-sets=complex" to support all multibyte character sets.

• The character set is a simple character set that is not compiled into Mysqld, and the character set definition file is not in the client's expected location.

In that case, one of the following methods is required to resolve the problem:

1. Recompile the client to support the character set.

2. Specify the directory where the character set definition file is located for the client. For many clients, you can use the "--character-sets-dir" option to complete the task.

3. Copy the character set definition file to the desired location of the client.