vb.org Archive - Some Japanese characters showing up as ?*

This is pretty strange. Our whole site is based around vBulletin. We use a lot of Japanese on the site.

We have no problems with the Japanese inside the actual forum. However in our news section, we just recently had a problem. Basically our news section parses the news with vB's BBCode system. I've discovered that it for some reason is turning japanese characters into ?*. However it doesn't do this inside the forum. If I turn off the bbcode parsing, the japanese characters show as normal. It isn't doing it to many characters but enough to make it hard to read.

Here is the code I'm using:

Code:

$do_html = true; $do_smilies = false; $do_bbcode = true;

$do_imgcode = true; $do_nl2br = true; $cachable = false;





require_once('forum/includes/class_bbcode.php');

$parser =& new vB_BbCodeParser($vbulletin, fetch_tag_list());

$pagetext = $parser->do_parse(

$text2,

$do_html, $do_smilies, $do_bbcode,

$do_imgcode, $do_nl2br, $cachable

);

Of course, $text2 is the text coming out of my database that contains the Japanese.

We've been using this system for over a year and it has worked. I haven't noticed that it has messed up Japanese before but it might have. Like I said, if I comment out that code, the Japanese shows fine. So is there something I'm missing?

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Template Usage: (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)bbcode_code_printable (1)footer (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (6)option (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (1)printthread (2)printthreadbit (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open Phrase Groups Available: global postbit showthread	Included Files: ./printthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/class_bbcode_alt.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete printthread_start bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete printthread_post printthread_complete
Messages:

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information

Page Generation 0.00955 seconds
Memory Usage 1,708KB
Queries Executed 10 (?)

More Information

Template Usage:

(1)ad_footer_end
(1)ad_footer_start
(1)ad_header_end
(1)ad_header_logo
(1)ad_navbar_below
(1)bbcode_code_printable
(1)footer
(1)gobutton
(1)header
(1)headinclude
(6)option
(1)post_thanks_navbar_search
(1)printthread
(2)printthreadbit
(1)spacer_close
(1)spacer_open

Phrase Groups Available:

global
postbit
showthread

Included Files:

./printthread.php
./global.php
./includes/init.php
./includes/class_core.php
./includes/config.php
./includes/functions.php
./includes/class_hook.php
./includes/modsystem_functions.php
./includes/class_bbcode_alt.php
./includes/class_bbcode.php
./includes/functions_bigthree.php

Hooks Called:

init_startup
init_startup_session_setup_start
init_startup_session_setup_complete
cache_permissions
fetch_threadinfo_query
fetch_threadinfo
fetch_foruminfo
style_fetch
cache_templates
global_start
parse_templates
global_setup_complete
printthread_start
bbcode_fetch_tags
bbcode_create
bbcode_parse_start
bbcode_parse_complete_precache
bbcode_parse_complete
printthread_post
printthread_complete

Messages:

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.00955 seconds Memory Usage 1,708KB Queries Executed 10 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)bbcode_code_printable (1)footer (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (6)option (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (1)printthread (2)printthreadbit (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open Phrase Groups Available: global postbit showthread	Included Files: ./printthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/class_bbcode_alt.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete printthread_start bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete printthread_post printthread_complete
Messages: