WordPress utf8mb4 requires a newer client library

Before working with the database, make a backup

This recommendation will help to solve one or all of the issues at once:

1. What to do if I see question marks instead of emoji ????
2. WPML diagnostics shows Character set utf8mb4 No
3. Site Health Diagnostics utf8mb4 requires a newer client library

Solution

Fix emoji

To write emoji to the database you need more bytes than utf8 allows, for this you need change to utf8mb4

Change encoding via phpMyAdmin:

1. Select a base
2. Press Operations
3. Select utf8mb4_general_ci (check boxes 1 and then the second)
4. Press Forward

Install library utf8mb4

In my example based on the cPanel panel, I will go to the PHP extension settings. /lveversion/php_selector.live.pl#/extensions

Ultimately, you need to check that you have five extensions enabled:

mysqlnd nd_mysqli nd_pdo_mysql pdo pdo_sqlite

Bonus

Diagnostics WPML memory is shown as 40Mb, although more is installed on the server. Add wp-confug.php:

/* Memory Limit / define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M'); define('WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M');