Same global user works local but fails on live server for information_schema database UPDATE query

Question

• I have two database servers, local and live.
• The local server is running MariaDB 10.11.6, the live server is running 10.11.8.
• I have the exact same global user, example@localhost on both the local and live servers.
• I ran the exact same SQL query (UPDATE information_schema.TABLES ...) on both servers.
• The database/table/column structures are exactly the same.
• The query ran 100% perfect on the local server.
• I received the following error on the live server:

Access denied for user 'example'@'localhost' to database 'information_schema'

• I researched and found the exact same results using SELECT * FROM mysql.global_priv WHERE 'User'='example';.
• The user has global permissions, not limited to specific databases on both the local and live servers.
• In the mysql.db database/table there is no mention of the example user because again, it has global permissions.
• In the mysql.db database/table there is no mention of the information_schema database on either server.

How do I force MariaDB to allow the example user to execute my UPDATE information_schema.TABLES ... query on the live server?

Answer 1

If someone has a better answer, please, by all means, share it. That being said it looks like the problem is, again, cPanel. With everything else being the same there are some weird restrictions on the live server that just don't exist on my local server. I do however have a different and verified working way of doing what I need using and am pursuing that approach now.

For anyone else dealing with a similar issue the closest I got were issues with signing in; I couldn't do mysql -u example or whatever (on both the local or live servers). Additionally there were posts elsewhere talking about a plugin causing problems for the root user not being able to sign in.