Re: ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

[Rick James]

When you are logged in as root, do
SHOW GRANTS;
You should expect to see something like
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '*...' WITH GRANT OPTION

But, it sounds like root does not have "WITH GRANT OPTION".

Alternatively do this:
mysql> SELECT user, host, Grant_priv FROM mysql.user WHERE user = 'root';
You should see one line, like this. If not, then let's study the wildcards, etc, that are getting in the way.

+------+-----------+------------+
| user | host      | Grant_priv |
+------+-----------+------------+
| root | localhost | Y          |
+------+-----------+------------+