When connecting to the MySQL screens in DirectAdmin, if this error appears, that would indicated that the “da_admin” user has not been setup correctly. Also you are reset the mysql root password too. To resolve this do the following.
/etc/init.d/mysqld stop mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
That should start up mysql without the need for a root password. Once in, type
mysql use mysql; update user set Password=PASSWORD('newpass') where user='root'; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'da_admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpass' WITH GRANT OPTION; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; quit;
Now we need to make sure it’s setup correctly for DA to use. Edit /usr/local/directadmin/conf/mysql.conf and set
user=da_admin passwd=newdapass
Now edit the file /root/.my.cnf and add the following lines
[client] pass="newpass" user=root