Okay long story short - I had a self compiled server up and running, playing happily for weeks. Get progressively annoyed that it doesn't show a proper revision number in my binaries. So I do everything over again this morning - success.
So before I restarted - everything, I backed up my MySQL/MySQL Server 5.7/Data folder containing all my databases, believing this to be sufficient, and I would be able to drop my character/account into the new server(chacters/auth). And by backed up I mean, I copied those folders manually. When replaced with the newly created data in the folder, MySQL service won't start at all, surprise surprise. I've tried copying the whole data folder, just the characters/auth folders, either or, etc. Nothing works. Only with those newly created characters/auth does it function.
Only difference in the methods was old was db 335.21071, and new being the newest 335.21081
I believe now that I should have exported those databases in SQLyog. But who knows, am noob.
Have I lost literal days of playtime? Or is there something I can do here?