MySQL Bugs: #1042: Faulty Password field size on the mysql user table

Bug #1042	Faulty Password field size on the mysql user table
Submitted:	13 Aug 2003 13:08	Modified:	13 Aug 2003 13:59
Reporter:	Terrance Smith	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Installing	Severity:	S2 (Serious)
Version:	4.1	OS:	Windows (Windows 2000 Professional)
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
The user table in the mysql database has a bad byte length for the Password field (supposed to be 41 but is 45 on the download from your site).  When you reset your passwords, the password is encrypted but once you update the privileges (via FLUSH PRIVILEGES or RELOAD), you no longer can gain access to the database.

The resulting message is displayed:

Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server.

How to repeat:
1.  Back up your database or have an existing account without a password so you can recover easier.
2.  Change the password of an account
3.  Flush privileges
4.  Attempt to log into a database with the password

you get the following error:  Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server.

Suggested fix:
1.  Remove the passwords from the affected user account (i.e. set to "")
2.  Flush the privileges
3.  Modify the user table, Password field to reflect the correct size of 41 bytes
4.  Reset your password
5.  Flush the privileges again

You should now be able to use the account with a password

Error message is actually:

ERROR 1249: Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server. Consider upgrading MySQL client

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been committed to our
source repository of that product and will be incorporated into the
next release.

If necessary, you can access the source repository and build the latest
available version, including the bugfix, yourself. More information 
about accessing the source trees is available at
    http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Installing_source_tree.html

There are deep changes between 4.1.0 and 4.1.1 with regard of Passwords