Encryption problems?

[Lilmikeishere]

Lately I have tried to integrate my server with the vBulletin forum software.

Apparently, it's not been going too well.

Sometimes it reads the forum name and pass correctly, and other time it says it's invalid even though you are using your forum pass and name to connect to the server.

I am using a Java MySQL driver to connect to the database.

Also, I realized that if I don't add

characterEncoding=UTF-8

Than I would get this error when trying to connect:

java.sql.SQLException: Unknown initial character set index '192' received from s
erver. Initial client character set can be forced via the 'characterEncoding' pr
operty.
        at com.mysql.jdbc.Connection.configureClientCharacterSet(Connection.java:2667)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.Connection.initializePropsFromServer(Connection.java:3304)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.Connection.createNewIO(Connection.java:1825)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.Connection.<init>(Connection.java:452)
        at com.mysql.jdbc.NonRegisteringDriver.connect(NonRegisteringDriver.java:411)
        at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(Unknown Source)
        at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(Unknown Source)
        at Server.createConnection(Server.java:24)
        at Server.main(Server.java:64)

Anyway, my question is:

Why do I get this reoccuring problem?

I don't see as to why it would say Invalid pass/name when I am connecting to the right database and doing everything correctly.

Is it some sort of encryption error?