Thanks for your ideas. I re-imaged the server to start the upgrade process again. Tried using mw-config from a browser (installing INTL, and all other dependencies it suggested). FYI, my 1.16 version used LocalSettings.php which I kept. I didn't start it from scratch with the upgraded install...There is also an AdminSettings.php which contains the MySQL login/pw for use by the maintenance scripts. The wikilinks work but they also got corrupted along with the article title. E.g., http://www.hindupedia.org/en/Category:Concise_Encyclopedia_of_Hinduism Has a link to an article entitled "Adbhuta BrÄ hmaṇa" which works (links to http://www.hindupedia.org/en/Adbhuta_Br%C3%84%C2%81hma%C3%A1%C2%B9%E2%80%A1a ) The first link in the article has proper multi-byte characters ("Adbhuta Brāhmaṇa literally means wonderful or strange Brāhmaṇa.") This title should be "Adbhuta Brāhmaṇa <http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Adbhuta_Br%C4%81hma%E1%B9%87a>" Best Regards, Krishna <NOTE :removing thread history because to much other stuff was embedded in it due to the digest>