I don't see what is "dangerous" about setting ChopBlanks to zero (what evidence do you see to suggest that?). It seems to be just an option, one which you'd like to set the way you want. It does seem like there may be a bug in that ChopBlanks is only supposed to affect Char columns, but seems to be affecting your Tinyblob column (I am not sure what a tinyblob is, but if it's the same as a char, then that may be the reason).