I changed my root level password on phpMyAdmin. I was unsure where to enter the password itself, as it did not give me the option (login form). I wondered if it was the php.ini
This seemed to have fixed it when using terminal to reset the password:
/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqladmin -u root -p password newpassword
Found on mamp faq.
I just solved this issue on my MBP! In MAMP Pro (v352), go to the MySQL tab and press "Change Password".
I was being annoyed by the startup "access denied" error MAMP would show, even though I was able to access my site using phpMyAdmin or other SQL tools. I even found/updated the password in checkMysql.sh, repairMysql.sh, and upgradeMysql.sh. I did not notice the script called quickCheckMysqlUpgrade.sh and correcting the password in that fixed the startup error for me.
Look in the files:
The important one in this case is "quickCheckMysqlUpgrade.sh". All the files are located in the /Applications/MAMP/bin/ directory.
In these files you'll find something like
# /bin/sh
/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqlcheck --quick --check-upgrade -u root -proot --socket=/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock mysql
When you see -proot that is the password MAMP will try to use, -p{password}.
-p means "password" and whatever comes after is the password. So change "-proot" to eg. "-pmysecret" or whatever your password is.