[n7studios]

Summary

GitHub's ubuntu-latest runners now use Ubuntu 26.04, which includes MySQL 8.4. MySQL 8.4 doesn't load the mysql_native_password plugin by default, causing the Permit MySQL Password Auth step to fail with Plugin 'mysql_native_password' is not loaded.

Enables the plugin before MySQL starts. The loose- prefix ensures MySQL 8.0 (Ubuntu 24.04 runners) ignores the option.

Testing

Tested locally against MySQL 8.4.7 (reproduced the error, then confirmed the fix) and MySQL 8.0.46.

Checklist

• I have written a test and included it in this PR
• I have run all tests and they pass
• The code passes when running the PHP CodeSniffer
• Code meets WordPress Coding Standards for PHP, HTML, CSS and JS
• Security and Sanitization requirements have been followed
• I have assigned a reviewer or two to review this PR (if you're not sure who to assign, we can do this step for you)