While creating an application with C# and MYSQL as the back end i encountered a problem where I expected the c# to return value as a string but then ended up getting a {byte[]} as the result.
To get around this issue, and after lots of googling, i discovered the problem could easily be sorted from the connection string. Just add "respect binary flags=false;" in your connection string. i.e
Server=svrName;Database=dbName;Uid=Usrname;Pwd=pwdName;respect binary flags=false;
