Hi, we are using the LDAP backand with MS ActiveDirectory which uses the charset utf-8. Our MySQL version is unfortunately 4.0.15 and we can't update so we have to use iso-8859-1 as default charset. Now we experience problems while trying to log in with usernames containing special chars. This happens, because usernames are NOT convertet to the right charset when querying the LDAP database. Neither Kernel::System::CustomerAuth::LDAP::Auth() nor Kernel::System::CustomerUser::LDAP::CustomerUserDataGet() does any convertion. Why aren't $Param{CustomerID} and $Param{User} _Convert(ed)To() the LDAP charset in Kernel::System::CustomerUser::LDAP::CustomerUserDataGet()? In Kernel::System::CustomerAuth::LDAP::Auth() I fixed the problem temporarily adding the line Encode::from_to($Filter, 'iso-8859-1', 'utf-8'); after preparing the $Filter. This should probably be replaced by Kernel::System::Encode. My configuration: $Self->{CustomerUser1} = { Name => 'LDAP Backend', Module => 'Kernel::System::CustomerUser::LDAP', Params => { ... SourceCharset => 'utf-8', DestCharset => 'iso-8859-1', }, ... }; $Self->{'DefaultCharset'} = 'iso-8859-1';