MariaDB utf8mb4 installation

[iddqd_x]

Hi!

I'm trying to setup new whmcs instance (8.5.1). My problem (TL;DR) all tables become utf8mb3_unicode_ci, not utf8mb4_unicode_ci as expected.

I'm running MariaDB 10.6. Same problem with MySQL 8.0.xx. Other PHP software shows me that tables are utf8mb4

Important notes for 10.6 version (https://mariadb.com/kb/en/old-mode/)

Quote

From MariaDB 10.6.1, the main name of the previous 3 byte utf character set has been changed to utf8mb3. If set, the default, utf8 is an alias for utf8mb3. If not set, utf8 would be an alias for utf8mb4.

and another one (https://mariadb.com/kb/en/unicode/)

Quote

From MariaDB 10.6, utf8 is by default an alias for utf8mb3, but this can changed to ut8mb4 by changing the default value of the old_mode system variable.

My my.cnf file

[mysql]
default-character-set=utf8mb4

[mysqld]
character-set-client-handshake = FALSE
init_connect ='SET collation_connection = utf8mb4_unicode_ci'
init_connect ='SET NAMES utf8mb4'
character-set-server = utf8mb4
collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
old_mode=

But with old_mode option install wizard fails with error "Oops! Something went wrong and we couldn't process your request." When old_mode is disabled, installation succeeds but tables are utf8mb3

Is it possible to install whmcs with the required (utf8mb4) encoding?

Thank you.

[iddqd_x]

Workaround after installation

ALTER TABLE %table_name% CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;