MySQL 8.0: Inconsistent results with TIMESTAMP and timezone handling in JOIN query
I'm a bit lost with I'm working with an scenario with MySQL 8.0 where a JOIN query involving TIMESTAMP fields is returning inconsistent results based on the server's timezone settings... I have two tables: `events` and `users`. The `events` table has a `start_time` column of type `TIMESTAMP`, while the `users` table has a `created_at` column also of type `TIMESTAMP`. Here’s a simplified version of the query I’m running: ```sql SELECT u.id, e.id, e.start_time FROM users u JOIN events e ON u.created_at <= e.start_time; ``` The expected behavior is to retrieve all events that occur after a user's account creation time. However, when I run this query in different environments with varying timezone settings, I sometimes get rows that shouldn't match. For example, if a user was created at `2023-10-01 12:00:00` UTC and an event starts at `2023-10-01 12:00:00` UTC, I expect this event not to appear in the result set. I've tried explicitly setting the timezone using: ```sql SET time_zone = 'UTC'; ``` Yet, the results still vary when switching between 'UTC' and 'America/New_York'. I've also checked the session timezone settings with: ```sql SELECT @@session.time_zone; ``` and confirmed that it reflects the changes I made. I’m not sure if I should be using a different data type or handling the timezone conversion in a specific way. Any insights on how to ensure consistent results across different timezones would be greatly appreciated. I've been using Sql for about a year now. What's the best practice here?