Originally raised as https://ecosystem.atlassian.net/browse/ATST-998

Problem Definition
When installing JIRA against MySQL 5.7, the MySQL server default collation must be set to utf8mb4_bin. Otherwise, JIRA will not even start. In Confluence, there is an option to set the connectionCollation option in the JDBC connection string so that the MySQL server default can remain something else (if already used by another application):
https://confluence.atlassian.com/kb/how-to-fix-the-collation-and-character-set-of-a-mysql-database-744326173.html

Server character set considerations for Confluence
If you want to use utf8mb4, and character_set_server is not set to utf8mb4 in the my.cnf or my.ini file on your MySQL Server and you can't change this (for example utf8 is required for a database used by another application) you will need to add the connectionCollation=utf8mb4_bin parameter to your connection URL in order to use utf8mb4. See the Connector/J 8.0 or Connector/J 5.1 documentation for more information.

Suggested Solution
Check the connection string for 'connectionCollation' option during JIRA startup.

Workaround
:cross_mark: ​No current workaround. Set the MySQL server default collation