PHP with MySQL 8.0+ error: The server requested authentication method unknown to the client

Question

I'm running MySQL version 8 on PHP 7.0.

I'm getting the following error when I try to connect to my database from PHP:

Connect Error: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2054] The server requested authentication method unknown to the client

PHP might show this error

Warning: mysqli_connect(): The server requested authentication method unknown to the client [caching_sha2_password] in D:\xampp\htdocs\reg\server.php on line 10

How can I fix this problem?

Answer 1

@mohammed, this is usually attributed to the authentication plugin that your mysql database is using.

By default and for some reason, mysql 8 default plugin is auth_socket. Applications will most times expect to log in to your database using a password.

If you have not yet already changed your mysql default authentication plugin, you can do so by:
1. Log in as root to mysql
2. Run this sql command:

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password
BY 'password';  

Replace 'password' with your root password. In case your application does not log in to your database with the root user, replace the 'root' user in the above command with the user that your application uses.

Digital ocean expounds some more on this here Installing Mysql