docker-compose mysql 8.0.23 refuses to allow external access - mysql

Question

I apologize if this is already answered, or is a poor/poorly worded question.
I recently restarted a mysql-server:8.0.23 container running on docker versoon 20.10.21 on an Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS server, and the mysql container suddenly began to reject all connections with ERROR 1130 (HY000): Host '<ip address>' is not allowed to connect to this MySQL server. This happens for all attempts, localhost, and external.
Ive spent a few days trying to fix this by modifying the docker-compose and the docker entrypoint files, deleted the contents of the container's volume to start over, but it still continues to reject any attempt from any user to connect to it. I see no errors when starting up the container, and from file contents, databases and users seem to be created.
All attempts to connect with it continue to fail.
My current docker-compose looks like this:
version: '3'
services:
mysql-stuff:
image: mysql/mysql-server:8.0.23
#image: mysql/mysql-server
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "3306:3306"
environment:
MYSQL_ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: "yes"
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: "rootpwd"
MYSQL_DATABASE: "thing_one"
MYSQL_USER: "thing_one"
MYSQL_PASSWORD: "thing_one_pwd"
volumes:
- mysql-stuff-volume:/var/lib/mysql
- ./mysql/conf/db_init:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d
command:
--default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
--bind-address=0.0.0.0
healthcheck:
test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-h", "localhost"]
timeout: 10s
retries: 10
volumes:
mysql-stuff-volume:
external: true
And my 01.sql file in /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d looks like this:
/* CREATE USER 'thing_one'#'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'thing_one_pwd'; */
ALTER USER 'root'#'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'rootpwd';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
ALTER USER 'thing_one'#'%' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'thing_one_pwd';
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS thing_one;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON thing_one.* TO 'thing_one'#'%';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'#'localhost';
CREATE USER 'stuff'#'%' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'rootpwd';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'stuff'#'%' WITH GRANT OPTION;
UPDATE mysql.user SET host='%' WHERE user='root';
UPDATE mysql.user SET host='%' WHERE user='thing_one';
UPDATE mysql.user SET host='%' WHERE user='stuff';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Please what am I doing wrong?
Thanks in advance!