When trying to import data from excel i get the following error:

Incorrect string value: \xE2\x88\x9E),'for column 'Specification' at row 1 (#1366)

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a solution to this error?

Thanks.

It could be that the 3 characters \xE2, \x88 and \x9E are not valid characters that would fit into the type that you have defined. Check the data in the Excel spreadsheet to make sure it contains only valid characters that correspond to the datatype you are importing into.

Thanks for that.

How can i find out what the characters are?

How are you uploading the data into the database? Are you converting Excel to CSV or are you using ODBC to perform this operation? It looks like you are using multiset characters. Have you created the database and table using UTF8 characterset?

I have investigated a little more and found that there appears to be a bug with insert statements with a different characterset. Take a look at this link

\xE2 = alt+0226 = â
\x88 = alt+0136 = ˆ
\x9E = alt+0158 = ž

Thanks for that r937, but I don't see them characters anywhere in the text that i'm importing.
Where did you get that info from?

it-iss.com
The way i'm doing it is (this might be a bit long winded, and probably the wrong way).

I use Access to import the excel and then from Access I export to ODBC.