diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 67e94d7526..a4657a2fe4 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ phpMyAdmin - ChangeLog
 - issue #11783 Avoid syntax error in javascript messages on invalid PHP setting for max_input_vars
 - issue #11784 Properly handle errors in upacking zip archive
 - issue #11785 Set PHP's internal encoding to UTF-8
+- issue #11786 Fixed Kanji encoding in some specific cases
 
 4.5.3.1 (2015-12-25)
 - issue #11774 Undefined offset 2
diff --git a/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php b/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php
index 79222aa73d..b879c3c0fd 100644
--- a/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php
+++ b/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php
@@ -82,6 +82,9 @@ function PMA_Kanji_strConv($str, $enc, $kana)
         return $str;
     }
     $string_encoding = mb_detect_encoding($str, $kanji_encoding_list);
+    if ($string_encoding === false) {
+        $string_encoding = 'utf-8';
+    }
 
     if ($kana == 'kana') {
         $dist = mb_convert_kana($str, 'KV', $string_encoding);
diff --git a/libraries/php-gettext/gettext.inc b/libraries/php-gettext/gettext.inc
index 00b966692c..74e0be9940 100644
--- a/libraries/php-gettext/gettext.inc
+++ b/libraries/php-gettext/gettext.inc
@@ -175,6 +175,9 @@ function _get_codeset($domain=null) {
  */
 function _encode($text) {
     $source_encoding = mb_detect_encoding($text);
+    if ($source_encoding === false) {
+        $source_encoding = 'utf-8';
+    }
     $target_encoding = _get_codeset();
     if ($source_encoding != $target_encoding) {
         return mb_convert_encoding($text, $target_encoding, $source_encoding);