SQL Auth Help

I just solved this for my situation. Because I upgraded my linux mint 19.3 to 20, it also upgrades my mysql 5.7 to 8.xx, thus changing the default authentication method to  'caching_sha2_password' from  'mysql_native_password'. 

To fix this I added the line under the [mysqld] section of mysqld.cnf :

default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password

IDK what it is for windows machines but I believe adding it to the my.cnf also works for both. 

Basically it's whatever file it runs that has the [mysqld] section.

So the higher security databases can still use the newer  'caching_sha2_password' method while lower security like ranks data stuff can still login.