#1273 – Unknown collation: ‘utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci’

I believe this error is caused because the local server and live server are running different versions of MySQL. To solve this:

1. Open the sql file in your text editor
2. Find and replace all utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci with utf8mb4_unicode_ci
3. Save and upload to a fresh mySql db

Hope that helps

In my case it turns out my
new server was running MySQL 5.5,
old server was running MySQL 5.6.
So I got this error when trying to import the .sql file I'd exported from my old server.

MySQL 5.5 does not support utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci, but
MySQL 5.6 does.

Updating to MySQL 5.6 on the new server solved collation the error !

If you want to retain MySQL 5.5, you can:
- make a copy of your exported .sql file
- replace instances of utf8mb4unicode520_ci and utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci
...with utf8mb4_unicode_ci
- import your updated .sql file.

Open the sql file in your text editor;

1. Search: utf8mb4_unicode_ci Replace: utf8_general_ci (Replace All)

2. Search: utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci Replace: utf8_general_ci (Replace All)

3. Search: utf8mb4 Replace: utf8 (Replace All)

Save and upload!

You can solve this by finding

ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci;

in your .sql file, and swapping it with

ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_general_ci;