# Logstash from SQL Server to Elasticsearch character encoding problem

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-from-sql-server-to-elasticsearch-character-encoding-problem/314587
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [September 16, 2022, 3:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-from-sql-server-to-elasticsearch-character-encoding-problem/314587 "2022-09-16T15:23:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Startech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Startech](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Startech)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2022, 3:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-from-sql-server-to-elasticsearch-character-encoding-problem/314587/1 "2022-09-16T15:23:25Z")

</div>

Hi,

I am using ELK stack v8.4.1 and trying to integrate data between SQL Server and Elasticsearch via Logstash. My source table includes Turkish characters (collation `SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS`). When Logstash writes these characters to Elasticsearch, it converts the Turkish characters to `'?'`. For example 'Şükrü' =\> '??kr?'. (I used before ELK stack v7.\* and didn't have that problem)

This is my config file:

```auto
input {
    jdbc 
    {
        jdbc_connection_string => "jdbc:sqlserver://my-sql-connection-info;encrypt=false;characterEncoding=utf8"            
        jdbc_user => "my_sql_user"
        jdbc_driver_class => "com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver"    
        jdbc_driver_library => "my_path\mssql-jdbc-11.2.0.jre11.jar"
        statement => ["Select id,name,surname FROM ELK_Test"]
        schedule => "*/30 * * * * *"    
    }
    stdin {
        codec => plain { charset => "UTF-8"}
   }
}    

output {
  elasticsearch {
    hosts => ["localhost:9200"]
    index => "test_index"
    document_id => "%{id}" 
    user => "logstash_user"
    password => "password"
  }
  stdout { codec => rubydebug }
}

```

I tried with and without filter to force encoding to UTF-8 but doesn't change.

```auto
filter {
        ruby { 
            code => 'event.set("name", event.get("name").force_encoding(::Encoding::UTF_8))'
        }
}

```

Below is my Elasticsearch result:

```auto
{
        "_index": "test_index",
        "_id": "2",
        "_score": 1,
        "_source": {
          "name": "??kr?",
          "@version": "1",
          "id": 2,
          "surname": "?e?meci",
          "@timestamp": "2022-09-16T13:02:00.254013300Z"
        }
      }

```

BTW console output results are correct.

```auto
{
          "name" => "Şükrü",
      "@version" => "1",
            "id" => 2,
       "surname" => "Çeşmeci",
    "@timestamp" => 2022-09-16T13:32:00.851877400Z
}

```

I tried to insert sample data from Kibana Dev Tool and the data was inserted without a problem. Does anybody help, please? What can be wrong? What can I check?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2022, 3:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/logstash-from-sql-server-to-elasticsearch-character-encoding-problem/314587/2 "2022-10-14T15:23:45Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.