Re: Workbench connects remotely, MySQL for Excel doesn't - "Use 4.1 style passwords"

[Javier Treviño]

Hi Gene,
The support for the Old Authentication Protocol was dropped from most MySQL client products because it has security issues, which are of the utmost important for Oracle.

I am almost certain Workbench versions more recent than 6.3.4 may have dropped the support for the Old Authentication Protocol as well because of this very same reason.

This is something that does not need fixing in any of the MySQL products. Your hosting provider must be aware that the MySQL setup they have is insecure and as such it may give you future problems, passwords can be caught over the network traffic and your data would be exposed.

You can find more information here:
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/internals/en/old-password-authentication.html
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/password-hashing.html

The correct way to proceed would be to set the password for your users, using the MySQL Workbench version that is currently working for you, as the information on the second link (please read it thoroughly so you understand what I am talking about):

SET SESSION old_passwords=0;
SET PASSWORD FOR my_user=PASSWORD('my_password');

Then after that is done you should be able to connect with a newer Workbench version and also with MySQL for Excel.

Hope this helps.

Best regards.

====================================
Javier Treviño
MySQL on Windows Team