Access denied for user 'root'@localhost (using password: YES)

[Diarmuid O'Brien]

Having installed MySQL server in my Win10 machine, I can successfully have my password validated at will when configuring settings in the installer. However, Workbench rejects the same password every time with the above error, and so does the command prompt using the 'mysql -uroot -p' sequence. Cleary they both dislike it. Why might this be, and what can I do about it? MySQL80 is running in services.

Some thoughts come to mind:


- MySQL installer doesn't seem to specify the user name, whilst the other methods are essentially telling me that the u/n + p/w combination is invalid, rather than the p/w specifically. How can I check that 'root' has access to the server as a user?

- I've used a special character in the p/w. is it possible that some authentication methods approve of such a character [e.g. MySQL server installation] whilst other don't [e.g. command prompt and WB]?