Having a problem with my db and CodeIgniter

Hi, I have a general text area field where clients write some text to be saved to the DB (MySQL). I have tried everything but it seems that PHP (or CodeIgniter not sure there) is converting '% de' into '\xDE' and the db is not being able to save the data. I have tried doing a manual update through PHPMyAdmin and it saves without a problem. Here is my db config:

Code:

'dbdriver' => 'mysqli',
    'dbprefix' => '',
    'pconnect' => TRUE,
    'db_debug' => (ENVIRONMENT !== 'production'),
    'cache_on' => FALSE,
    'cachedir' => '',
    'char_set' => 'utf8',
    'dbcollat' => 'utf8_general_ci',
    'swap_pre' => '',
    'encrypt' => FALSE,
    'compress' => FALSE,
    'stricton' => FALSE,
    'failover' => array(),
    'save_queries' => TRUE

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Turn Off global_xss_filtering and/or stop using XSS filters on data that you save to a database. XSS escaping should be performed on OUTPUT, not input.