I get an error when I run the below through PHP, but it works fine when I run it in my MySql ide.

include 'config.php';
include 'opendb.php';
/* PASSWORD('newpass') */
mysql_select_db('test') or die('Error, cannot select mysql database');
$query = "UPDATE user SET password = PASSWORD('newpass') WHERE user = 'a' ";
mysql_query($query) or die('Error, query failed');
include 'closedb.php';
echo " user updated";

I found out the issue. The size of my password field was shorter than 41 bytes.