www.chamilo.org

Let us try a hard-coded "dirty" way about the database connection encoding.

9.

See "Administration > Configuration settings > Character set" --> I forgot to mention, check whether this setting is UTF-8.
If UTF-8 value there does not solve the problem, then:

10.

Make a backup copy first an then open the file .../chamilo/main/inc/global.inc.php.
Go to the code fragment at lines 164-166:

if (empty($charset)) {
      $charset = 'UTF-8';
}

Make it to be:

//if (empty($charset)) { // Commented, an encoding-related workaround
      $charset = 'UTF-8';
//} // Commented, an encoding-related workaround

If the problem persists, then see the fragment at the lines 175-178:

// Initialization of the database encoding to be used.
Database::query("SET SESSION character_set_server='utf8';");
Database::query("SET SESSION collation_server='utf8_general_ci';");
Database::query("SET CHARACTER SET '" . Database::to_db_encoding($charset) . "';");

Add after this fragment put the following statement:

Database::query("SET NAMES 'utf8';"); // An encoding-related workaround

If this approach does not work, restore the file as it was.

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If the problem is still there, try to compare the configuration between the "good" and the "problematic" system.

If there is no configuration information available, at least you may browse the page "Administration > System status" for both of the systems.