Formstack Documents performed a MySQL upgrade to guarantee stability and security for our customers on Jan 11, 2023, at 2 am EST. The code update could result in issues for special characters.
Below are common scenarios to fix special characters that appear broken in your document templates.
Scenario 1: Your merged documents suddenly have broken special characters
Open the document editor to confirm if broken characters appear there.
- If not, perform a test merge to view the generated document. If the generated document does not have broken special characters, then the broken characters were temporary and your templates moving forward should not reflect broken characters.
- If there are broken characters in the editor or merged document, manually fix the characters in the editor, save the document, and generate the document once more.
Scenario 2: You applied some fixes before Jan 11, 2023, 12:30 pm EST but your merged documents still have broken special characters
If you have already manually applied fixes to the broken special characters and they appear, open the document editor to see if broken characters appear there.
- If not, perform a test merge to view the generated document. If the generated document does not have broken characters, then the broken characters were temporary and your templates moving forward should not reflect broken characters.
- If there are broken characters in the editor or merged document, manually fix the characters in the editor, save the document, and generate the document once more.
Scenario 3: You applied some fixes before Jan 11, 2023, 12:30 pm EST but now you can’t see your merged documents at all
If you have already manually applied fixes to the broken characters, and now you cannot see your document, open version history, and preview the latest available version. Open the version history and click Revert.
Step 1: Click on the Version History button on the right side of the Document Builder.
Step 2: Click on the Preview the latest available version.
Step 3: Select the Version History and click Revert to restore the old version.
Please reach out to Support if you continue to experience broken characters.