connection string not being recognized

I have a secret in the following format as per all of the documentation

```
psql "host='mypostgresservername1.postgres.database.azure.com' port=5432 dbname='postgres' user='myuser@mypostgresservername1' password='&&&&&&&&&' sslmode=require"
```

My password contains and starts with special (non alpha-numeric) characters and might also end the same way.

I have verified through connecting via the command line and DBeaver that all values are correct.

I get the following ambiguous and frustrating error:

Error: Error occurred while running action:
Error: Please provide a valid connection string. A valid connection string is a series of keyword/value pairs separated by space. Spaces around the equal sign are optional. To write an empty value, or a value containing spaces, surround it with single quotes, e.g., keyword = 'a value'. Single quotes and backslashes within the value must be escaped with a backslash

No whitespace in any of my values, nor backslashes.

Please help. This is terrible.