Can special characters in descriptions cause datasets to be unsearchable?

[Conzar]

In Ckan version 2.7 and 2.8 (haven't tried in 2.9), using special characters in the descriptions of dataset seems to cause the dataset to be unsearchable. It also causes failures of modification like changing a dataset from private to public.

An example of a special character is ā that causes this sort of failure.

Is this a bug or is there something that I can enable in the configuration to handle these types of characters?

Thank you