MySQL 8.0.26 doesn't start after saving my.ini
Solution 1:
I installed Notepad++ and opened both the modified file and the original, and they indeed have different encodings. The original was UTF-8, and the modified file is UTF-8-BOM.
I changed the encoding back to UTF-8 on the modified file, and it solved the issue.
So, apparently, the problem is that MS Notepad changes the encoding to UTF-8-BOM, and that causes MySQL to fail to start.