Sorry, probably should of just made a new thread as this is a different issue. But i was able to get past the admin page. Issue was trying to set config.php file with utf8mb4_unicode_ci; switched it to utf8_general_ci.
I'll search thru some past threads as I'm sure other ppl had this issue about updating the dbcollation using mariadb.
I'll search thru some past threads as I'm sure other ppl had this issue about updating the dbcollation using mariadb.