diff --git a/include/functions2.php b/include/functions2.php
index e212609db..1936d146d 100644
--- a/include/functions2.php
+++ b/include/functions2.php
@@ -1483,9 +1483,9 @@
 
 		$tag = preg_replace('/[\'\"\+\>\<]/', "", $tag);
 
-//		$tag = str_replace('"', "", $tag);
-//		$tag = str_replace("+", " ", $tag);
-		$tag = str_replace("technorati tag: ", "", $tag);
+		if (DB_TYPE == "mysql") {
+			$tag = preg_replace('/[\x{10000}-\x{10FFFF}]/u', "\xEF\xBF\xBD", $tag);
+		}
 
 		return $tag;
 	}
diff --git a/include/rssfuncs.php b/include/rssfuncs.php
index 8797ee523..6eb4e6d98 100644
--- a/include/rssfuncs.php
+++ b/include/rssfuncs.php
@@ -761,7 +761,11 @@
 				// Workaround: 4-byte unicode requires utf8mb4 in MySQL. See https://tt-rss.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3377&p=20077#p20077
 				if (DB_TYPE == "mysql") {
 					foreach ($article as $k => $v) {
-						$article[$k] = preg_replace('/[\x{10000}-\x{10FFFF}]/u', "\xEF\xBF\xBD", $v);
+
+						// i guess we'll have to take the risk of 4byte unicode labels & tags here
+						if (!is_array($article[$k])) {
+							$article[$k] = preg_replace('/[\x{10000}-\x{10FFFF}]/u', "\xEF\xBF\xBD", $v);
+						}
 					}
 				}