Base91 string corruption in mysql database

Question

I'm using Base91 to store an image as a String in a mysql database. When I retrieve the string to convert it back to an image, the string seems to have been corrupted by the database.

I'm sure it's being corrupted in the database because I did an isolated test on a single device of taking a picture, converting it to a Base91 byte[], converting the byte[] to a string (using Latin1), converting the string back to byte[], then to an image, and it worked. When I try that with a server in the middle, the images end up broken.

I've tried changing the collation on the specific column on the database from utf8 to ascii to latin1, no luck.

Code:

1. Encoding Picture:

   File file1 = new File(path);
   FileInputStream in = new FileInputStream(file1);
   
   byte[] imagesBytes = new byte[(int) file1.length()];
   in.read(imagesBytes, 0, (int) file1.length());
   
   _picture = new String(Base91.encode(imagesBytes), Base91.CHARSET);
   //appointment.addPicture(new String(Base91.encode(imagesBytes), Base91.CHARSET));
   

2. Storing encoded image:

    JsonObject jsonx = new JsonObject();
    jsonx.addProperty("picture", request.getParameter("picture"));
   
    db.insert("AppointmentPicture",
               "(AppointmentID, picture)values(?,?)",
               new Object[]{appointment.getDbID(), jsonx.toString()},
               false);
   

3. Retrieving the image:

   ResultSet rSet = db.query("AppointmentPicture", new String[]{"picture"}, "AppointmentID = ?", new Object[]{appointmentID});
       System.out.println("pictures grabbed");
   
       JsonObject json = new JsonObject();
       int counter = 0;
   
       while (rSet.next()) {
           counter++;
           json.addProperty(String.valueOf(counter), rSet.getString("picture"));
   
       }
   
       json.addProperty("count", String.valueOf(counter));
   
       response.getWriter().write(json.toString());
       System.out.println("pictures returned");
   

4. Decoding Image:

    String serverResponse = in.readLine();
   
    JSONObject json = new JSONObject(serverResponse);
   
    int count = Integer.parseInt(json.getString("count"));
   
    for(int i = 0; i < count; i++){
   
        JSONObject j = new JSONObject(json.getString(String.valueOf(i + 1)));
        byte[] picBytes = j.getString("picture").getBytes(Base91.CHARSET);
        File file = new File(imageDirectory, String.valueOf(System.currentTimeMillis()) + ".jpeg");
        BufferedOutputStream out = new BufferedOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(file));
        out.write(picBytes, 0, picBytes.length);
   
    }