Re: Finding root password on new 5.7 install

[Peter Brawley]

> ERROR 1524 (HY000): Plugin 'auth_socket' is not loaded

Which tells you that mysql.user.plugin='auth_socket' for this user.

As the article cited above indicates. that plugin is designed to work only with no password. (Not a good idea but that's another story.)

So you'll need to set plugin='mysql_native_password' for that user. Or ...

alter user 'root'
IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'new_pwd';