Amazon Redshift will no longer support the creation of new Python UDFs starting Patch 198. Existing Python UDFs will continue to function until June 30, 2026. For more information, see the [ blog post ](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/amazon-redshift-python-user-defined-functions-will-reach-end-of-support-after-june-30-2026/). 

# Multibyte character load errors
<a name="multi-byte-character-load-errors"></a>

Columns with a CHAR data type only accept single-byte UTF-8 characters, up to byte value 127, or 7F hex, which is also the ASCII character set. VARCHAR columns accept multibyte UTF-8 characters, to a maximum of four bytes. For more information, see [Character types](r_Character_types.md). 

If a line in your load data contains a character that is not valid for the column data type, COPY returns an error and logs a row in the STL\$1LOAD\$1ERRORS system log table with error number 1220. The ERR\$1REASON field includes the byte sequence, in hex, for the invalid character. 

An alternative to fixing not valid characters in your load data is to replace the not valid characters during the load process. To replace not valid UTF-8 characters, specify the ACCEPTINVCHARS option with the COPY command. If the ACCEPTINVCHARS option is set, the character you specify replaces the code point. If the ACCEPTINVCHARS option isn't set, Amazon Redshift accepts the characters as valid UTF-8. For more information, see [ACCEPTINVCHARS](copy-parameters-data-conversion.md#acceptinvchars).

The following list of code points are valid UTF-8, COPY operations don't return an error if the ACCEPTINVCHARS option is not set. However, these code points are not valid characters. You can use the [ACCEPTINVCHARS](copy-parameters-data-conversion.md#acceptinvchars) option to replace a code point with a character that you specify. These code points include the range of values from `0xFDD0` to `0xFDEF` and values up to `0x10FFFF`, ending with `FFFE` or `FFFF`:
+ `0xFFFE`, `0x1FFFE`, `0x2FFFE`, …, `0xFFFFE`, `0x10FFFE`
+ `0xFFFF`, `0x1FFFF`, `0x2FFFF`, …, `0xFFFFF`, `0x10FFFF`

The following example shows the error reason when COPY attempts to load UTF-8 character `e0 a1 c7a4` into a CHAR column.

```
Multibyte character not supported for CHAR 
(Hint: Try using  VARCHAR). Invalid char: e0 a1 c7a4
```

If the error is related to a VARCHAR data type, the error reason includes an error code as well as the not valid UTF-8 hex sequence. The following example shows the error reason when COPY attempts to load UTF-8 `a4` into a VARCHAR field.

```
String contains invalid or unsupported UTF-8 codepoints. 
Bad UTF-8 hex sequence: a4 (error 3)
```

The following table lists the descriptions and suggested workarounds for VARCHAR load errors. If one of these errors occurs, replace the character with a valid UTF-8 code sequence or remove the character.

[\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/dg/multi-byte-character-load-errors.html)