Malformed communication packet or Error Could not connect to the database
After applying the November 3rd 2020 MariaDB upgrade, certain PHP versions will fail to work and report the following error messages:
OR
Until a fix is released from MariaDB, to resolve these errors, you must either update to PHP 7.3 or downgrade your MariaDB version.
More information on this bug can be tracked at https://jira.mariadb.org/browse/MDEV-24121
Updated on: 23/02/2023
Thank you!