Errors occurred during installation: A database error has occurred:

Hi!
I attempted another upgrade after a new release came out for ojs (last August tried to update to 3.4.0.1) ,
I am currently on 3.3.013 trying to update to 3.4.0-4 after I click on “Upgrade Open Journal Systems” in the browser, I get the following error:

  • A database error has occurred: SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column ‘at.assoc_type’ in ‘where clause’ (SQL: select distinct at.type_id from announcement_types as at left join journals as c on at.assoc_id = c.journal_id where c.journal_id is null or at.assoc_type <> 256)

Running PHP 8.1
Mysql 8.0.33
Apache 2.4.57
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Apache logs have same message as above:
SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column ‘at.assoc_type’ in ‘where clause’ (SQL: select distinct at.type_id from announcement_types as at left join journals as c on at.assoc_id = c.journal_id where c.journal_id is null or at.assoc_type <> 256), referer: https://myserver/index/install/upgrade

I have tried four times now (each after a complete restore)
I use the newly released config.inc.php file with my server customizations
I have tried with the driver type as mysql during one install and mysqli during a different install

Is there a fix for this issue?

Could you advise if a clean install (as opposed to an upgrade) of the software would work better and then connect to the existing database?

Thank you for any suggestions.