Weird characters but UTF-8 set?

Even stranger - this seems to have also effected old news stories, e.g. https://lovebedford.co.uk/news/post.php?s=2014-05-23-hair-and-beauty-show-a-student-sensation

but new ones are fine... https://lovebedford.co.uk/news/post.php?s=2016-05-26-love-bedford-run-bedford-2016

OK, so I logged into Perch admin and went on the top link page and just clicked 'Save' and now it seems to not have any funny characters. However, I don't really want to go into every news story and have to click Save as it will be quite time consuming!

It seems to affect pages that are older than November 2015 as seen by the news listings:

https://lovebedford.co.uk/news/?page=6

Thanks Drew. I know I'm in the wrong for using /news instead of /blog and it's a really old version of Perch. I do plan on starting from scratch with this site on a new server but wondered if there was a quick fix I could do.

PERCH INFORMATION

Perch: 2.3.2
Production mode: Production (100)
Installed apps: content (2.3.2), perch_events (1.8), perch_news (3.7.6), perch_backup (1.2)
DB driver: MySQLi
DB tables: perch2_blog_authors, perch2_blog_categories, perch2_blog_comments, perch2_blog_posts, perch2_blog_posts_to_categories, perch2_blog_posts_to_tags, perch2_blog_tags, perch2_categories, perch2_category_counts, perch2_category_sets, perch2_content_index, perch2_content_items, perch2_content_regions, perch2_events, perch2_events_categories, perch2_events_to_categories, perch2_navigation, perch2_navigation_pages, perch2_news_authors, perch2_news_categories, perch2_news_comments, perch2_news_posts, perch2_news_posts_to_categories, perch2_news_posts_to_tags, perch2_news_tags, perch2_page_templates, perch2_pages, perch2_resource_log, perch2_resource_tags, perch2_resources, perch2_resources_to_tags, perch2_settings, perch2_user_privileges, perch2_user_role_privileges, perch2_user_roles, perch2_users
Users: 5
App runtimes:
<?php
    include(PERCH_PATH.'/core/apps/content/runtime.php');

    include(PERCH_PATH.'/addons/apps/perch_blog/runtime.php');

    include(PERCH_PATH.'/addons/apps/perch_events/runtime.php');

    include(PERCH_PATH.'/addons/apps/perch_news/runtime.php');


?>
Scheduled tasks for perch_events: update_category_counts (60 mins)
Editor plug-ins: ckeditor, markitup
H1: ed2bd9286328caabeb59dcd273f559fd
L1: c6ac85417024b91d217d13842cbccf86
headerColour: #000000
content_singlePageEdit: 1
helpURL:
siteURL: /
hideBranding: 1
content_collapseList: 1
lang: en-gb
update_2.3.2: done
latest_version: 2.8.15
headerScheme: dark
dashboard: 1
content_hideNonEditableRegions: 0
logoPath: /perch/resources/logo.png
perch_blog_post_url: /blog/post.php?s={postSlug}
perch_blog_slug_format: %Y-%m-%d-{postTitle}
perch_blog_akismet_key:
perch_blog_max_spam_days: 0
perch_events_detail_url: /events/event.php?event={eventSlug}
perch_blog_comment_notify: 0
perch_events_update: 1.8
perch_blog_update: 3.8.2
perch_news_post_url: /news/post.php?s={postSlug}
perch_news_update: 3.7.5
perch_news_slug_format: %Y-%m-%d-{postTitle}
perch_news_akismet_key:
perch_backup_mysqldump_path:
perch_news_comment_notify: 0
update_2.8.14: done
PERCH_DEVELOPMENT: 10
PERCH_STAGING: 50
PERCH_PRODUCTION: 100
PERCH_DB_USERNAME:xxxx
PERCH_DB_SERVER: mysql.flinthosts.co.uk
PERCH_DB_DATABASE: xxx
PERCH_DB_PREFIX:xxxx
PERCH_TZ: UTC
PERCH_EMAIL_FROM:xxxx
PERCH_EMAIL_FROM_NAME: xxxx
PERCH_LOGINPATH: /perch
PERCH_PATH: E:\Domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot\perch
PERCH_CORE: E:\Domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot\perch\core
PERCH_RESFILEPATH: E:\Domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot\perch\resources
PERCH_RESPATH: /perch/resources
PERCH_HTML5: 1
PERCH_ERROR_MODE: DIE
PERCH_DEBUG:
PERCH_PREVIEW_ARG: preview
PERCH_TEMPLATE_PATH: E:\Domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot\perch\templates
PERCH_DEFAULT_DOC: index.php
PERCH_DEFAULT_EXT: .php
PERCH_PRODUCTION_MODE: 100
PERCH_RWD:
PERCH_AUTH_PLUGIN:
PERCH_DB_CHARSET:
PERCH_DB_PORT:
PERCH_DB_SOCKET:
HOSTING SETTINGS

PHP: 5.4.14
Zend: 2.4.0
OS: WINNT
SAPI: cgi-fcgi
Safe mode: not detected
MySQL client: mysqlnd 5.0.10 - 20111026 - $Id: e707c415db32080b3752b232487a435ee0372157 $
MySQL server: 5.6.26
Extensions: Core, bcmath, calendar, ctype, date, ereg, filter, ftp, hash, iconv, json, mcrypt, SPL, odbc, pcre, Reflection, session, standard, mysqlnd, tokenizer, zip, zlib, libxml, dom, PDO, openssl, SimpleXML, wddx, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, cgi-fcgi, mysql, mysqli, gd, curl, Phar, mhash
GD: Yes
ImageMagick: No
PHP max upload size: 8M
PHP max form post size: 8M
PHP memory limit: 128M
Total max uploadable file size: 8M
Resource folder writeable: Yes
Session timeout: 24 minutes
Native JSON: Yes
Filter functions: Yes
Transliteration functions: No
PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432: AMD64
_FCGI_X_PIPE_: \\.\pipe\IISFCGI-c62aacfd-70b9-4f61-b901-709096202c68
PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS: 10000
PHPRC: D:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\
ALLUSERSPROFILE: C:\ProgramData
APPDATA: C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming
APP_POOL_CONFIG: C:\inetpub\temp\apppools\lovebedford.co.uk\lovebedford.co.uk.config
APP_POOL_ID: lovebedford.co.uk
CommonProgramFiles: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
CommonProgramFiles(x86): C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
CommonProgramW6432: C:\Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME: SOLOMON
ComSpec: C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe
ESET_OPTIONS:
FP_NO_HOST_CHECK: NO
LOCALAPPDATA: C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS: 4
OS: Windows_NT
Path: C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;d:\ColdFusion9\verity\k2\_nti40\bin;D:\Program Files (x86)\PHP\;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\ESET\ESET File Security\;
PATHEXT: .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE: x86
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER: AMD64 Family 21 Model 1 Stepping 2, AuthenticAMD
PROCESSOR_LEVEL: 21
PROCESSOR_REVISION: 0102
ProgramData: C:\ProgramData
ProgramFiles: C:\Program Files (x86)
ProgramFiles(x86): C:\Program Files (x86)
ProgramW6432: C:\Program Files
PSModulePath: C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
PUBLIC: C:\Users\Public
SystemDrive: C:
SystemRoot: C:\Windows
TEMP: C:\Windows\TEMP
TMP: C:\Windows\TEMP
USERDOMAIN: WORKGROUP
USERNAME: SOLOMON$
USERPROFILE: C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile
VERITY_CFG: d:\ColdFusion9\verity\k2\common\verity.cfg
windir: C:\Windows
windows_tracing_flags: 3
windows_tracing_logfile: C:\BVTBin\Tests\installpackage\csilogfile.log
ORIG_PATH_INFO: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php
URL: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php
SERVER_SOFTWARE: Microsoft-IIS/7.5
SERVER_PROTOCOL: HTTP/1.1
SERVER_PORT: 80
SERVER_NAME: lovebedford.co.uk
SCRIPT_NAME: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php
SCRIPT_FILENAME: e:\domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot\perch\core\settings\diagnostics\index.php
REQUEST_URI: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/
REQUEST_METHOD: GET
REMOTE_PORT: 30236
REMOTE_HOST: xxxxxxx
REMOTE_ADDR: xxxxxx
PATH_TRANSLATED: e:\domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot\perch\core\settings\diagnostics\index.php
LOCAL_ADDR: xxxxxxxx
INSTANCE_META_PATH: /LM/W3SVC/219
INSTANCE_NAME: LOVEBEDFORD.CO.UK
INSTANCE_ID: 219
HTTPS: off
GATEWAY_INTERFACE: CGI/1.1
DOCUMENT_ROOT: e:\domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot
APPL_PHYSICAL_PATH: e:\domains\lovebedford.co.uk\wwwroot\
APPL_MD_PATH: /LM/W3SVC/219/ROOT
IIS_UrlRewriteModule: 7.1.0761.0
HTTP_X_REWRITE_URL: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/
HTTP_UPGRADE_INSECURE_REQUESTS: 1
HTTP_USER_AGENT: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/50.0.2661.102 Safari/537.36
HTTP_REFERER: https://lovebedford.co.uk/perch/core/settings/
HTTP_HOST: lovebedford.co.uk
HTTP_COOKIE: PHPSESSID=g9k64avnujggmjpnd5ee4v9pq4; _ga=GA1.3.807614592.1461923039
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE: en-GB,en;q=0.8,en-US;q=0.6,fr;q=0.4
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING: gzip, deflate, sdch
HTTP_ACCEPT: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8
HTTP_CONNECTION: keep-alive
FCGI_ROLE: RESPONDER
PHP_SELF: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php
REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT: 1464343201.5375
REQUEST_TIME: 1464343201

I contacted my host and they said the following:

I can't see how it can be server related - if it were all pages would show the same, that was why I suggested the database - each story I assume has an entry in a table, wasn't sure if that table has somehow got the wrong collation - or has the data for these stories been added in a different way?
As it looks like your links are built from a common file /news/post.php the only place you should need to define the meta is in 'post.php'.

Looking again at the database 'lovebedford' (which is under the studiohem domain) I can the characters in the database, so it looks like this has happened as the data has been added to the db. 
You can see this under the db 'lovebedford' table 'perch2_news_posts' PostID 44 is correct, ID 46 is incorrect. 
The collation does not appear to be set in the database.

Hi Drew

No I've never exported/imported the db.

Thanks for the above code, I've added it to the headers but doesn't seem to have changed anything.

It is weird how it's only affecting certain news stories and only in the title not the body of the story.

I'm just going to go in the news stories and re-save them manually but I'll leave this thread up here as someone else may come across it in the future.

Thanks