New to K8's - issue with NodePort service?

So I’m running into something I definitely don’t understand and I’m not sure if its something fundamental to K8’s that I don’t understand.

I have a functional K8 cluster running on 2 Centos8 worker nodes with a Centos8 master node. I have a deployment of a MySQL container that has been running successfully for the last week or so.

I am attempting to deploy phpmyadmin to administer the MySQL DB instance. I have a NodePort service running to front end the phpmyadmin instance (official image from Docker Hub). I am able to connect and login to the MySQL instance using its default internal network (K8 network, not a ClusterIP Service) IP address. However, somewhere between 1 and x clicks in the phpmyadmin interface result in me getting kicked back to the login page. If I run the exact same phpmyadmin instance as a regular/manual/non-K8 controlled container on one of the worker nodes, things seem to work fine for as long as I need them to in the phpmyadmin interface.

Anyone have any guidance for me?