Community Documentation

Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server...

Last updated June 26, 2008. Created by LeeHunter on October 25, 2005.
Edited by KarenS, Heine, sepeck. Log in to edit this page.

You are installing a new install of Drupal and during setup receive the error

Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client.

You are probably using MySQL 4.1 or higher and need to reset the password to pre 4.1 style.

There's a quick way to fix this if you use recent versions of PhpMyAdmin and have the rights to edit MYSQL user information:

  1. Select the 'privileges' option on the main PhpMyAdmin page
  2. Edit the user you're using to connect to the Drupal database
  3. Scroll down to where it says 'Change password'
  4. Enter and re-type the password for that user
  5. IMPORTANT Where it says 'Password Hashing', choose the option that says 'MySQL 4.0 compatible'.
  6. Save your selection

You should now be able to connect to your Drupal database using that user and password with no more errors.

About this page

Drupal version
Drupal 4.5.x or older, Drupal 4.6.x, Drupal 4.7.x, Drupal 5.x, Drupal 6.x

Reference

Drupal’s online documentation is © 2000-2013 by the individual contributors and can be used in accordance with the Creative Commons License, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. PHP code is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Comments on documentation pages are used to improve content and then deleted.