## The problem

After upgrade Grafana to 11.5.0 using official Helm chart from 11.3.1 or 11.4.0 versions, the k8s pod can't start successfully returning these errors:

## The fix

Grafana 11.5.0 failing to connect to an external MySQL database after upgrading from 11.3.1/11.4.0 was fixed by upgrading to 11.6.1; the reporter confirmed the pod starts and everything works there (also verified with PostgreSQL). If Grafana won't start against your database right after an upgrade, check whether a newer patch release already fixed it before digging into your DB config.