diff --git a/run_tests.sh b/run_tests.sh
index 42133699a7a..496b0b20bd7 100755
--- a/run_tests.sh
+++ b/run_tests.sh
@@ -263,7 +263,7 @@ ensure_grunt_for_qunit() {
 }
 
 
-DOCKER_DEFAULT_IMAGE='galaxy/testing-base:18.01.3'
+DOCKER_DEFAULT_IMAGE='galaxy/testing-base:18.01.4'
 
 test_script="./scripts/functional_tests.py"
 report_file="run_functional_tests.html"
diff --git a/test/docker/base/Dockerfile b/test/docker/base/Dockerfile
index 25630c0a2b7..05d8c8e1dfc 100644
--- a/test/docker/base/Dockerfile
+++ b/test/docker/base/Dockerfile
@@ -60,7 +60,6 @@ ADD start_mysql.sh /opt/galaxy/start_mysql.sh
 ADD ansible_vars.yml /tmp/ansible/ansible_vars.yml
 ADD provision.yml /tmp/ansible/provision.yml
 
-
 RUN mkdir /etc/galaxy && cd /tmp/ansible && mkdir roles && \
     mkdir roles/galaxyprojectdotorg.galaxy-os && \
     wget --quiet -O- https://github.com/galaxyproject/ansible-galaxy-os/archive/master.tar.gz | tar -xzf- --strip-components=1 -C roles/galaxyprojectdotorg.galaxy-os && \
diff --git a/test/docker/base/run_test_wrapper.sh b/test/docker/base/run_test_wrapper.sh
index 4d6b6c1ab41..0aa62242558 100644
--- a/test/docker/base/run_test_wrapper.sh
+++ b/test/docker/base/run_test_wrapper.sh
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@ then
     GALAXY_TEST_INSTALL_DB_MERGED="true"
     GALAXY_TEST_DBURI="postgres://root@localhost:5930/galaxy?client_encoding=utf8"
     TOOL_SHED_TEST_DBURI="postgres://root@localhost:5930/toolshed?client_encoding=utf8"
+    export GALAXY_CONFIG_OVERRIDE_DATABASE_ENCODING="SQL_ASCII"
 elif [ "$GALAXY_TEST_DATABASE_TYPE" = "mysql" ];
 then
     sh /opt/galaxy/start_mysql.sh