Can you please attempt to try the driver version MySQL 8 instead of 5? 5 is a bit outdated and we by default provide the MySQL 8 for new installations of KNIME.
Also, what version of KNIME are you currently running?
Was this ever working for you, or has this always run into the same error?
Are you able to write to the DB outside of KNIME, and if so, which driver are you using for that connection?
Once we get a bit more information, we can hopefully continue to narrow down the root cause.