MySQL - Connection Failed: [HY000] [MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver] Access denied for user

**Richard Amiel McGough** · 06-13-2012, 04:58 PM

I tried to use the MySQL ODBC 3.51 Connector. It failed with the message "Connection Failed: [HY000] [MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver]Access denied for user ..." I did all the usual debugging, such as checking connection settings to no avail. Then after about an hour searching the internet, I found the answer here:

You might have an error message like this: "Connection Failed: [HY000] [MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver]Access denied for user ‘newaccount’@’192.168.11.1′ (using password: YES)“. The root causes of this error message are: you type wrong password, OR the password is too complex.

MySQL ODBC 3.51 No-Complex Password

Warning – You might have a serious headache with MySQL ODBC 3.51 if the password in your GRANT command contains special characters, such as ! @ # $ % ^ ?. MySQL ODBC 3.51 ODBC Driver does not support these special characters in the password box. The only error message you would receive is “Access denied” (using password: YES)

I had a caret ^ in my password. An hour for a caret? Welcome to the wonderful world of software engineering.

Unregistered · 12-18-2013, 08:12 PM

Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. Who would have thought that a vendor would discourage/fail on a complex password. I spent a few hours trying to figure out why I couldn't connect with ODBC. We had a @ character in our password.

Thanks for sharing and helping me solve my problem.

**Richard Amiel McGough** · 12-18-2013, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. Who would have thought that a vendor would discourage/fail on a complex password. I spent a few hours trying to figure out why I couldn't connect with ODBC. We had a @ character in our password.

Thanks for sharing and helping me solve my problem.

Great! Thanks for letting me know it helped. I've benefited countless times by folks posting their solutions to obscure problems.

Unregistered · 01-09-2014, 02:34 PM

Had an '#' in my password for the remote user, it allows me to have that password as the root user on the actual box

**Richard Amiel McGough** · 01-09-2014, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Had an '#' in my password for the remote user, it allows me to have that password as the root user on the actual box

Awesome! Glad to help. Software development would be impossible if folks didn't share their solutions online. The best site I've found for that is StackOverflow.com. I get answers there almost every day.