After upgrading the digikam rpm package from OpenSuse Leap 42.3 to OpenSuse Leap 15.0 with digikam-5.9.0-lp150.1.3.x86_64 rpm package, digikam tries to convert the MySQL dackend database from schema version 8 to schema version 9 and fails. The error messages are:

digikam.general: AlbumWatch use QFileSystemWatcher
digikam.general: Database Parameters:
   Type:                     "QMYSQL"
   DB Core Name:             "digikam_metadata"
   DB Thumbs Name:           "digikam_thumbnails"
   DB Face Name:             ""
   Connect Options:          ""
   Host Name:                "localhost"
   Host port:                3306
   Internal Server:          false
   Internal Server Path:     ""
   Internal Server Serv Cmd: ""
   Internal Server Init Cmd: ""
   Username:                 "digikam_user"
   Password:                 "XXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

digikam.dbengine: Loading SQL code from config file "/usr/share/digikam/database/dbconfig.xml"
digikam.dbengine: Checking XML version ID => expected:  3  found:  3
digikam.coredb: Core database: running schema update
digikam.coredb: Core database: have a structure version  8
digikam.coredb: Core database: makeUpdates  8  to  9
digikam.dbengine: Failure executing query:
 "" 
Error messages: "QMYSQL: Unable to execute query" "Illegal mix of collations (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_unicode_ci,IMPLICIT) for operation '='" 1267 2 
Bound values:  ()
digikam.dbengine: Error while executing DBAction [ "UpdateSchemaFromV7ToV9" ] Statement [ "CALL drop_index_if_exists('AlbumRoots', 'identifier');" ]
digikam.coredb: Core database: schema update to V 9 failed!
digikam.coredb: Core database: cannot process schema initialization