I Fixed the “Updating failed. Error message: Could not update post in the database” Error in WordPress

Updating failed. Error message: Could not update post in the database when UTF-8 symbol in paragraph

Alright, fellow WordPress warriors, have you ever stared at your screen in utter disbelief, as if your beloved CMS just personally betrayed you? That was me the other night, sweating over a client’s website when the infamous error popped up:

“Updating failed. Error message: Could not update post in the database.”

Cue the panic.

To make matters worse, this wasn’t just any post—it was a time-sensitive update, and the culprit? A single emoji. Yes, 📫 was the villain that crashed the party. I had to laugh, mostly to keep from crying. If you’ve ever found yourself in this emoji-induced nightmare, stick around. I’ve got you.

The Scene of the Crime

It started innocently enough. I was updating a post, adding a few snazzy emojis because, let’s face it, who doesn’t love a little flair in their content? But when I hit “Update,” WordPress hit me back with that error message.

At first, I thought, Nah, this is just a fluke. So, I refreshed the page. Same error. I tried re-entering the content. No dice.

You know it’s serious when you start Googling furiously, opening 20 tabs, and half of them are forums where the answers range from “just reinstall WordPress” (please, no 😩) to “it’s probably your hosting.” But I wasn’t about to nuke my site or spend hours arguing with my hosting provider.

Step 1: Identifying the Culprit

Through some trial and error, I noticed the error only happened when emojis were involved. Specifically, the 📫 emoji (you know, the one with the mailbox and the raised flag). The post updated just fine when I removed it.

At this point, I was both relieved (yay, I figured it out!) and annoyed (really, WordPress? A single emoji?).

Step 2: Rolling Up My Sleeves

After piecing together bits of wisdom from forums, blogs, and my own past troubleshooting experience, I realized this was likely a database issue. Emojis require proper encoding to play nice with the database, and in my case, my site wasn’t quite set up to handle them.

Here’s what worked for me: a two-step fix involving updates to the wp-config.php file and a custom function in functions.php.

Fix 1: Updating wp-config.php

The first step was ensuring my database was set up to handle the UTF-8 character set, specifically utf8mb4, which supports emojis. Here’s the code I added to my wp-config.php file:

/** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
define( 'DB_CHARSET', 'utf8mb4' );

/** The Database Collate type. */
define('DB_COLLATE', 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci');

This tells WordPress to use the utf8mb4 character set for the database, which is like the VIP section for text encoding—emojis included.

Fix 2: Encoding Emojis in functions.php

Next up, I needed to make sure WordPress could properly encode emojis before saving them to the database. For this, I used the wp_encode_emoji function, which essentially converts emojis into a format the database can handle.

Instead of editing the functions.php file directly (a habit I’ve learned the hard way to avoid), I used the Snippets plugin to add this handy bit of code:

add_filter( 'wp_insert_post_data', function( $data, $postarr ) {
    if ( ! empty( $data['post_content'] ) ) {
        $data['post_content'] = wp_encode_emoji( $data['post_content'] );
    }
    return $data;
}, 99, 2 );

This filter ensures that whenever you save a post, WordPress runs the post content through wp_encode_emoji, making it safe to store in the database.

Step 3: Testing

Once I made these updates, it was time for the moment of truth. I added the problematic 📫 emoji back to the post, hit “Update,” and… it worked!

No errors, no drama—just a perfectly updated post with all its emoji glory intact. Cue the happy dance. 💃

Lessons Learned

1. Emojis Are Sneakily Complex: Who knew that a tiny image could cause such chaos? They’re adorable, but they come with baggage.
2. UTF-8 Is Your Friend: If your site has any chance of handling multilingual text or emojis, make sure your database is set to utf8mb4.
3. Backup Before You Tinker: Before making any changes to core files like wp-config.php or adding custom code, always back up your site. It’s saved me more times than I care to admit.

The Takeaway

At the end of the day, WordPress troubleshooting is part technical know-how, part detective work, and a dash of patience. Sure, it’s frustrating when something as small as an emoji can derail your workflow, but there’s also a weird satisfaction in solving these puzzles.

So, the next time WordPress throws an error your way, remember: you’ve got this. And if you don’t, well, there’s always someone else who’s been through the same mess (and probably blogged about it).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to add more emojis to my posts—because after all that effort, I’ve earned it. 😉

What about you? Have you ever had a WordPress error drive you up the wall? Share your war stories in the comments below—I’d love to commiserate.

Until next time, keep coding and keep caffeinated! ☕