Migration of a MySQL database fails in Plesk: Unknown collation: ‘utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci’

Symptoms

• Unable to migrate a database. The following error is displayed in Plesk:

  Failed to copy content of database 'wordpress_v'
  Migration tools tried to perform operation in 1 attempts: Restoration of MySQL database failed. Most probable reason:

  Target MySQL server does not contain necessary character set.
  Most likely it is required to have at least MySQL 5.5 to restore such database.
  ...
  Here is the original error message reported by MySQL client when restoring the database:
  ERROR 1273 (HY000) at line 213: Unknown collation: 'utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci'

Cause

MySQL server on the target server missed the required collation mentioned in the error message.

Resolution

Apply one of the following solutions:

• Upgrade MariaDB to version 10.3 and above on the destination server. For instructions, visit this KB article.

• Migrate the subscription to the destination server with the same MySQL version as on the source server.