Q: Mysql root user can't create table or other super user tasks Server version: 5.7.19-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 (Ubuntu)
I'm having some weird issues on my root user on MySQL. Read a bunch of posts now but not finding a solution.
When I try to create a database:
mysql> create database test;
ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user 'root'@'%' to database 'test'

So the root user isn't able to create a database. Also not able to select e.g. mysql.user table or:
mysql> flush privileges;
ERROR 1227 (42000): Access denied; you need (at least one of) the RELOAD privilege(s) for this operation

Permissions however seem right:
mysql> select user();
+------------------------------------+
| user()                             |
+------------------------------------+
| root@Ubuntu-1604-xenial-64-minimal |
+------------------------------------+

mysql> select current_user();
+----------------+
| current_user() |
+----------------+
| root@%         |
+----------------+


mysql> show grants;
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Grants for root@%                                                 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| GRANT SUPER ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION                |
| GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `ditto`.* TO 'root'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

I have super user access on the database it seems to me.
As it is a live production server, I can't close the server and restart with --skip-grant-tables. Why could this be and how could I solve it?

A: I resolved the issue by running MySQL with skip-grant-tables to get full access and then fixing the mysql.user table. There were 3 root user entries for different environments and they didn't have the right permissions.
