I test the latest version (at the time of my download 09.01.2022) 8.1.1-2 / PHP 8.1.1 https://www.apachefriends.org/blog/new_xampp_20211224.html
Now after 1 month my database is corrupted. All the same reasons, all the same symptoms - user management and password changing. The latest versions of xampp are completely unusable with MariaDB. Yes, this is a critical problem of MariaDB! No one solves it. I do not know why...
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57128891/how-repair-corrupt-xampp-mysql-user-table/57212238
The latest working version with MariaDB is still the same 7.3.5 it has been running for a year on my server without failures.