diff --git a/lib/game-database-backend/Cargo.toml b/lib/game-database-backend/Cargo.toml
index 73fab28..4a9e002 100644
--- a/lib/game-database-backend/Cargo.toml
+++ b/lib/game-database-backend/Cargo.toml
@@ -9,6 +9,9 @@ game-database = { path = "../../lib/game-database", default-features = false }
 
 ddnet-account-sql = { version = "0.3.0", default-features = false }
 
+# when updating to the next major version check if
+# https://github.com/launchbadge/sqlx/issues/3387 is fixed
+# and remove the workaround in the code
 sqlx = { version = "0.8.2", features = ["runtime-tokio-rustls", "chrono"] }
 anyhow = { version = "1.0.95", features = ["backtrace"] }
 async-trait = "0.1.83"
diff --git a/lib/game-database-backend/src/lib.rs b/lib/game-database-backend/src/lib.rs
index 2b63378..f6294a5 100644
--- a/lib/game-database-backend/src/lib.rs
+++ b/lib/game-database-backend/src/lib.rs
@@ -121,7 +121,15 @@ impl GameDbBackend {
                             DbType::F64(_) => DbType::F64(row.try_get::<f64, _>(name.as_str())?),
                             DbType::Bool(_) => DbType::Bool(row.try_get::<bool, _>(name.as_str())?),
                             DbType::String(_) => {
-                                DbType::String(row.try_get::<String, _>(name.as_str())?)
+                                DbType::String(row.try_get::<String, _>(name.as_str()).or_else(
+                                    |_| {
+                                        // workaround for strings with binary collation
+                                        // https://github.com/launchbadge/sqlx/issues/3387
+                                        anyhow::Ok(String::from_utf8(
+                                            row.try_get::<Vec<u8>, _>(name.as_str())?,
+                                        )?)
+                                    },
+                                )?)
                             }
                             DbType::Vec(_) => {
                                 DbType::Vec(row.try_get::<Vec<u8>, _>(name.as_str())?)