Special characters are stored as ? in my mysql DB - php

Question

I use the following code to store and update data in my db.
<?php
header("Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8", true);
mysql_connect("localhost", "test", "test") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("test") or die(mysql_error());
// mysql_set_charset('UTF8');
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'");
mysql_query("SET CHARACTER SET utf8");
mysql_query("SET COLLATION_CONNECTION = 'utf8_unicode_ci'");
mysql_query("UPDATE `test`.`english` SET age = '".$age."', city = '".mysql_real_escape_string($_REQUEST['city'])."', aboutMe = '".$_REQUEST['about']."' WHERE `english`.`username` = '".$_REQUEST['username']."' LIMIT 1 ;")
or die(mysql_error());
The code is working well. But if the string, e.g. "city" contains a ä,ö,ü it is stored as ?
So for example the word "Bär" goes to "B?r".
I have already added these utf8 things but it does not help.
The server is only supporting php4.x
Edit: The DB is using latin1_general_ci as collation.

Answer 1

Use utf8 as collation, maybe utf8_bin or utf8_unicode_ci
(The ci means it's case insensitive so comparsions like "John" = "JOHN" return true). You can do this by running the following query in MySQL:
alter table `test`.`english` convert to character set utf8 collate utf8_unicode_ci;

Answer 2

change the table collation to utf8_bin.
To change the default character set and collation of a table including those of existing columns (note the convert to clause):
ALTER TABLE tableName CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin
in utf8_general_ci
ä = a
ö = o
ü = u
but in utf8_bin
ä != a
ö != o
ü != u

Answer 3

Keep ut8_unicode_ci and add this to your php code:
mb_language('uni');
mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');
mysql_query("set names 'utf8'",$connection);
I am using this everywhere (Cyrillic, Chinese etc ) and it is working for every query (insert or update).
<?php
header("Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8", true);
$connection = mysql_connect("localhost", "test", "test") or die(mysql_error());
mb_language('uni');
mb_internal_encoding('UTF-8');
mysql_query("set names 'utf8'",$connection);
mysql_select_db("test") or die(mysql_error());
mysql_query("UPDATE `test`.`english` SET age = '".$age."', city = '".mysql_real_escape_string($_REQUEST['city'])."', aboutMe = '".$_REQUEST['about']."' WHERE `english`.`username` = '".$_REQUEST['username']."' LIMIT 1 ;")
or die(mysql_error());

Answer 4

I got it working. I have no explanation for this behavior.
I have changed in the php file from utf8 to latin1:
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'latin1'");
mysql_query("SET CHARACTER SET latin1");
mysql_query("SET COLLATION_CONNECTION = 'latin1_general_ci'");
In the MySQL DB the collation is utf8_unicode_ci for the table and column.
It is working now for all characters beside the € symbol.