Alex T⚜️ Cem - Gents so is it all tables in the db to be set to utf8mb4_unicode_ci or utf8_unicode_ci? My understanding is that utf8mb4_unicode_ci is set at default install. I had moved my site a couple time and some tables (most are utf8_general_ci). Should I change encoding on the entire db to utf8mb4_unicode_ci? is that the default setting for UNA.

Yes, you need to make sure that all tables and all fields in all tables are set to the same collation - utf8mb4_unicode_ci