Root cause of persisting/displaying of special character is Characterset of MYSQL database.
Execute below query in DB, check the character set values. Character set client need to be in UTF8 format.
If it is working in testing db and not working in production db, then you can compare the result by running below sql query iin both the db and compare it. Comparing result can be applied in production db from testing db.
"SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set%';"
Execute below query in DB, check the character set values. Character set client need to be in UTF8 format.
If it is working in testing db and not working in production db, then you can compare the result by running below sql query iin both the db and compare it. Comparing result can be applied in production db from testing db.
"SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set%';"