Thymeleaf Encoding Issues With Javascript (using Spring Mvc)

I am using spring mvc + thymleaf v3 and have an encoding issue when it comes to some data in the javascript defined in the html head section. Here is the javascript as defined in t

Solution 1:

ah ben tbnk. I just externalized the javascript in a seperate file and included it in the html file which is being passed through thymeleaf and this solved the problem.

ouch, many hours lost to such a simple solution. hope this can help someone else that may come across this issue.