The MongoDB Node.js driver has improved its support for the SCRAM-SHA-256 authentication mechanism, which is now the default when available. This change addresses an edge case where the external library saslprep was not loaded correctly, potentially causing issues with connection to a MongoDB cluster. The issue can be resolved by upgrading to a newer version of the driver or appending the authMechanism option to the connection string with a value of SCRAM-SHA-1.