I have the following code on my server running on php 5.2.\*;

```
$curl = curl_init();
//$sumName = curl_escape($curl, $sumNameWeb);
$summonerName = urlencode($summonerName);
$url = "https://euw.api.pvp.net/api/lol/euw/v1.4/summoner/by-name/{$summonerName}?api_key=".$key;

curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
$result = curl_exec($curl);
$result = utf8_encode($result);
$obj = json_decode($result, true);
$statusCode = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($curl);

```

It works fine, however when it comes to special characters like; ë Ö å í .. etc it fails to connect.. I have been trying different ways maybe i would find a fix but i am failing to do so..

ok i have found my error!! however this is my situation.. it is connecting to the server and getting the data.. AND i am using $sumNameWeb to access the JSON when it is decoded however the returned $sumNameWeb special character has changed.. here is the code to access the JSON;

```
$sumID =  $obj[$sumNameWeb]["id"];
$sumLvl = $obj[$sumNameWeb]["summonerLevel"];

```

an example is, entering ë and returning Ã« from the server