I know that this is a subject that is addressed several times. I looked through those threads and tried what was suggested to no avail. I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I keep getting

Error during connection to database: TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.

Here is the output from cqrlog debug=1

ee@lee-Inspiron-3647:~$ cqrlog debug=1
Gtk-Message: 23:17:17.144: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"

Cqrlog Ver:2.3.0 (001) Date:2018-06-17
**** DEBUG LEVEL 1 ****

SSL libraries:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0
Loading libmysqlclient: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmysqlclient.so.20
**************************
MySQL version: 5.7
**************************
**********************************
MySQL version assigned: 5.7
**********************************
Loaded 118377 LoTW users
Loaded 115544 eQSL users
Loaded 40133 SCP calls
*
User home directory: /home/lee/
Program home directory: /home/lee/.config/cqrlog/
Data directory: /home/lee/.config/cqrlog/database/
Memebers directory: /home/lee/.config/cqrlog/members/
ZIP code directory: /usr/share/cqrlog/zipcodes/
Binary dir: /usr/bin/
Share dir: /usr/share/cqrlog/
TConnection to MySQL: 5.7
*
56 us states loaded
/usr/sbin/mysqld --defaults-file=/home/lee/.config/cqrlog/database/mysql.cnf --datadir=/home/lee/.config/cqrlog/database/ --socket=/home/lee/.config/cqrlog/database/sock --port=64000
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:1
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:2
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:3
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:4
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:5
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:6
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:7
Trying to connect to database
TMySQL57Connection : Server connect failed.
Trying:8

Here is from the mysql.err file

2018-10-24T02:17:41.317608Z 0 [System] [MY-010116] [Server] /usr/sbin/mysqld (mysqld 8.0.13) starting as process 7814
2018-10-24T02:17:41.318455Z 0 [Warning] [MY-013242] [Server] --character-set-server: 'utf8' is currently an alias for the character set UTF8MB3, but will be an alias for UTF8MB4 in a future release. Please consider using UTF8MB4 in order to be unambiguous.
2018-10-24T02:17:41.318466Z 0 [Warning] [MY-013244] [Server] --collation-server: 'utf8_general_ci' is a collation of the deprecated character set UTF8MB3. Please consider using UTF8MB4 with an appropriate collation instead.
2018-10-24T02:17:41.346107Z 1 [ERROR] [MY-011011] [Server] Failed to find valid data directory.
2018-10-24T02:17:41.346213Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010020] [Server] Data Dictionary initialization failed.
2018-10-24T02:17:41.346226Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010119] [Server] Aborting
2018-10-24T02:17:41.346494Z 0 [System] [MY-010910] [Server] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete (mysqld 8.0.13) MySQL Community Server - GPL.

I'm not a database admin nor am I unix system admin although I've used unix and linux before. Any suggestions on getting cqrlog working with mysql will be greatly appreciated.

Lee
N8LFK