I think you have anonymous users

Try running this:

SELECT user,host,password FROM mysql.user WHERE user='';

This will show what anonymous users exist. Most likely, you will see a line with a blank user, host %, and a blank password as shown below:

mysql> select user,host,password from mysql.user;
+-----------+-------------+-------------------------------------------+
| user      | host        | password                                  |
+-----------+-------------+-------------------------------------------+
| lwdba     | 127.0.0.1   | *xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| lwdba     | localhost   | *xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| lwdba     | %           | *xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| root      | localhost   | *xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| root      | 127.0.0.1   | *xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| vanilla   | localhost   |                                           |
| mywife    | %           |                                           |
|           | %           |                                           | <<<--- LOOK !!!
| replicant | 10.64.113.% | *xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| kumar     | %           |                                           |
+-----------+-------------+-------------------------------------------+

So, how did you login? Run this query:

SELECT USER(),CURRENT_USER();

What does this tell you?

• USER() reports how you attempted to authenticate in MySQL
• CURRENT_USER() reports how you were allowed to authenticate in MySQL

The second function CURRENT_USER() reveals how which anonymous user was used to log in.

What privileges did you have when you logged in?

Please run

SHOW GRANTS;

This will unveil what privileges you had at the time you logged in. The fact that you were blocked from creating a database shows you were not root but some lower-privileged user.

Please clean up your user grants.

• Feb 17, 2012 : MySQL : Why are there "test" entries in mysql.db?
• Feb 17, 2012 : What is the mysql.db table used for?
• Jan 18, 2012 : MySQL error: Access denied for user 'a'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

As for resetting the root password, please do the following:

echo "SET PASSWORD FOR [email protected]=PASSWORD('password');" > /var/lib/mysql/rootpwd.sql
service mysql restart
rm -f /var/lib/mysql/rootpwd.sql

I learned this efficient method from @ShlomiNoach.

Give it a Try !!!

I know what you did.

Do this:

SELECT `User`, `Grant_priv` FROM `mysql`.`user` WHERE `User` = 'root';

You will probably notice it returns a 'N' for Grant_priv. So do this:

UPDATE `mysql`.`user` SET `Grant_priv` = 'Y' WHERE `User` = 'root';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
SELECT `User`, `Grant_priv` FROM `mysql`.`user`;

And walla! Hope that helps.

After you enter as the root user check your privileges:

 mysql> show grants for 'root'@'localhost';

After checking your privileges you can try to give another user all the privileges, or you can try to give the root user all privileges again:

 mysql> grant all privileges on *.* to 'root'@'localhost';

If your root user doesn't have privileges you can try to restore them, so:

Stop the mysqld server

Restart the server this way mysqld_safe --skip-grant-table

Restore root privileges with:

 mysql> flush privileges;
 mysql> grant all privileges on *.* to 'root'@'localhost' with grant option;

Your privileges may be be reduced?

Also, you can try to create another account with root privileges.

And delete root user, and re-create with specified privileges.

This may be be helpful: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/resetting-permissions.html

C.5.4.1.2 - LINUX (Make file with query who create, a new user with full root privileges)

C.5.4.1.1 - Windows (Make file with query who create, a new user with full root privilegles)

Query: (Create root user)

  CREATE USER 'new_root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '***';
  GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'new_root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '***' WITH GRANT OPTION MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_UPDATES_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_USER_CONNECTIONS 0;

MySQL Manual Create User: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/adding-users.html

Check if you are running the import query against information_schema db, I fell for that for a while because I was using a new MysQL client and didn't realize that the query was trying to create tables in information_schema db (since the new db to be created didn't exist when running the query, the connection fell back to the first db in the server).

I tried every single answer here and took me nowhere as root access was used and privileges seemed right.