How to Fix "Plugin 'auth_socket' is not loaded" in Laravel Herd MySQL

This morning I fired up Laravel Herd, and hit a brick wall trying to access my local projects. Laravel Herd runs the DB as root, so when trying to navigate to the site I got this error:

ERROR 1524 (HY000): Plugin 'auth_socket' is not loaded

And chances are you would have googled it, and seen posts from 9 years ago, with advice just a tad outdated, and not all at structured for Herds MySQL service. Maybe you were told to run mysqld_safe only to see "No such file or directory" errors.

The problem is that Herd sandboxes its MySQL installation. The standard system commands (/usr/local/mysql/...) won't work because they are looking for a completely different database.

Here is how to properly skip permissions, find Herd's hidden data directory, and get your root user back on track.

The Fix

1. Stop the Herd Service

First, open Herd > Services and stop the MySQL service. We need the port free to run the server manually.

2. Find Your Real Data Directory

Herd generates a unique ID for your MySQL service, buried deep in your library. You cannot guess this path; you have to find it.

Open your terminal and run this to locate your ibdata1 file:

Bash

find "$HOME/Library/Application Support/Herd" -name "ibdata1" -type f -maxdepth 5 2>/dev/null

Copy the folder path returned (excluding the ibdata1 filename). It will look something like this: /Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/Herd/config/services/77425BEE.../

3. Start MySQL in "Skip Grant" Mode

Now, run the Herd-specific binary with the path you just found. Replace [YOUR_PATH] below with the path from Step 2:

Bash

"$HOME/Library/Application Support/Herd/bin/mysqld" \
  --basedir="$HOME/Library/Application Support/Herd" \
  --datadir="[YOUR_PATH]" \
  --skip-grant-tables

Note: You might see some logs, this is the server running, Leave this window open.

4. Reset the User

Open a new terminal tab/window and run this to connect without a password:

Bash

"$HOME/Library/Application Support/Herd/bin/mysql" -u root

If you get an error above talking about a sock being incorrect or not connecting, try this instead.

"$HOME/Library/Application Support/Herd/bin/mysql" -u root -h 127.0.0.1

Once you see the mysql> prompt, paste these SQL commands to remove the broken auth_socket plugin requirement and switch back to a standard password (empty in this case):

SQL

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY '';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

We're back!

Go back to your first terminal window, hit Ctrl+C to kill the manual server, and restart the MySQL service via the Herd app. If that doesn't work, just kill the process via htop or valid alternatives.

Everything should now work again!