Entering Chinese characters into Atahualpa options causes all options to reset

I tried setting up a date format including Chinese characters in UTF-8. After I hit the save button, all of Atahualpa's options had been reset to default.... Are the options fields not set up to take UTF8 input?

what version of Atahualpa and WP?
What is the url?
where did you do this?
what is the exact text you used?

Thanks for your response.

Wordpress 3.4.1, Atahualpa 3.7.7

Well, I've arlready started going back through redesigning it, but the URL is: http://eastasiastudent.net/

I tried to put this as the contents of 'BYLINE: Single Post Pages':

After I saved that, all of the Atahualpa settings reset. I did have backups, but unfortunately they turned out not to work when I needed them. Going to use a variety of backup options from now on.

Atahualpa uses the php date() function. From my reading, it doesnt seem to handle Chinese characters. I did find an example of how to do the translation (http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/pho...?2,19149,34521)

If I could tell you how to put this in the code, would it work for you?

P.s. learn to use the ato->export/import setting options

Yeah I really should have backed up with the ata export, I just thought that my overall backup would cover it. By the way, would it be possible to have Atahualpa auto-export its settings and keep them in a folder with the other files? Say, once a week. Might save a lot of people.

I'm thinking a simple solution to this might be to just put this in for the date:

The atahualpa settings are stored in the database, so a database backup will have them. I use a plugin to backup databases on a regular basis. You can use wp-dbmanager(free) or backupbudy($ but backup the files not just the db)

As for your solution, give it a try

OK, so I tried the method above, keeping the Chinese characters out of the date function. Same result: Atahualpa completely resets (this time I had the settings backed up though )

it must be something else about your environment. I just tried both your examples and this
gave me this result

while this
gave me this result

OK, I'll have a look into other causes then. Thanks for your help

Check your sites error and access logs on the host for any clues