I have a project that I developed several years ago, it accesses my local instance of MariaDB:

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 41
Server version: 11.2.2-MariaDB Homebrew

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Reading history-file /Users/sy/.mysql_history
Type 'help;' or 'h' for help. Type 'c' to clear the current input statement.

I’m working on iMAC:

macOS Monterey
Version 12.7.5
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)
Processor 4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Startup Disk Macintosh HD
Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4 GB

The version of node.js:

v21.4.0

With MySQLWorkbench I can connect to the database, I have the use the same credentials in my node application and the result is:

mySQL connection error: Error: ER_ACCESS_DENIED_ERROR: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)
node:events:510
    throw err; // Unhandled 'error' event
    ^

Error [ERR_UNHANDLED_ERROR]: Unhandled error. ('20/05/2024 10:53:15x1B[31m ERRORx1B[0m caught in mimic.js:socket.on(loadmimic):line 834:n' +
  "mySQL connection error: Error: ER_ACCESS_DENIED_ERROR: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)")
    at Socket.emit (node:events:508:17)
    at Socket.emit (/Users/sy/nodeTest/node_modules/socket.io/lib/socket.js:129:10)
    at Object.msg (/Users/sy/nodeTest/svr/err.js:58:24)
    at Handshake._callback (/Users/sy/nodeTest/mimic.js:831:27)
    at Sequence.end (/Users/sy/nodeTest/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/sequences/Sequence.js:75:24)
    at Handshake.ErrorPacket (/Users/sy/nodeTest/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/sequences/Handshake.js:69:8)
    at Protocol._parsePacket (/Users/sy/nodeTest/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/Protocol.js:172:24)
    at Parser.write (/Users/sy/nodeTest/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/Parser.js:62:12)
    at Protocol.write (/Users/sy/nodeTest/node_modules/mysql/lib/protocol/Protocol.js:37:16)
    at Socket.ondata (node:internal/streams/readable:1007:22) {
  code: 'ERR_UNHANDLED_ERROR',
  context: '20/05/2024 10:53:15x1B[31m ERRORx1B[0m caught in mimic.js:socket.on(loadmimic):line 834:n' +
    "mySQL connection error: Error: ER_ACCESS_DENIED_ERROR: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)"
}

This is the code that causes and reports the error:

              try{
                objDBConns[strDBid]['conn'] = mysql.createConnection(objDB);
                if ( objDBConns[strDBid]['conn'] ) {   
                  objDBConns[strDBid]['conn'].connect(function(e) {
                    if ( e ) {
                      delete objDBConns[strDBid]['conn'];
                      err.msg({'file'   : 'mimic.js',
                               'method' : 'socket.on('
                                                  + defs.SCKMSG_LOADMIMIC + ')',
                               'line'   : 834, 
                               'ex'     : 'mySQL connection error: ' + e,
                               'socket' : socket});
                    } else {
                      info.msg("mySQL connection: ok");                            
                    }
                  });
                }
              } catch( ex ) {
                err.msg({'file'   : 'mimic.js',
                         'method' : 'socket.on(' + defs.SCKMSG_LOADMIMIC + ')',
                         'ex'     : ex,
                         'socket' : socket});
              }              

Can anyone suggest what could have changed or why I can connect using MySQLWorkbench but not node.js ?